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Feb 17, 2024 09:11
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| # ? May 28, 2024 10:44 |
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Week 602: (Un)familiar Places Story Time 1248 words It was dark when I arrived outside Dave’s house and I just sat there awhile looking at it past the streaks of rain from the car, bemused by how little it had changed. There was a small light inside so I went up and knocked just as the weather started coming down again. Nothing. I was about to turn away when the door opened a crack, then closed with the rattling of the chain, and flew open. Guess I hadn’t changed that much either. Outwardly at least. “Jimmy! Is that you? poo poo, come in, get inside!” Dave had changed. Fatter and thinner at the same time, hair as faded as the paint on the door. “Thanks mate.” is all I could think to say as I followed him inside, and not a lot had changed there apart from a desk with a computer and monitor. He turned on a light as I sat down at the spot I’d always had in years gone and looked about. Some older clutter replaced with new, the dents and scrapes in the badly repaired walls the ghosts of parties and fights, a blur of good times and bad. I half expected Mincer to come wagging out but of course he didn’t have a dog no more. Or apparently a woman, news I could discern without being told from the state of the house when compared to the woman in questions’ habits. All that time had passed like eons and many a night I would think of this very room where we’d hang out selling weed and blow. The memories that sustained me inside just didn’t seem so happy now facing the reality of it, and who we really were. “What happened to Judy?” I asked. “Oh mate, she run off like five years ago, just fuckin’ left.” Dave said “You want a beer?” “No, no I gotta drive.” I said “Well poo poo you look good, they feed you proper in there now do they?” he said. “If you came to visit now and then you’d have seen Her Majesty’s luxury resort for yourself.” “Yeah sorry, it’s a long way... I sent ya some cash remember?” “Sad to report that 20 quid didn’t last the full 8 years.” I said “poo poo’s been hard.” is all he says, lighting a cigarette. “The boys still around?” “You know they ain’t.” he said, quieter now as we approached the past. “Not baggin’ poo poo no more then?” He shakes his head. “Shame.” I said, “Good while it lasted.” I realised I was looking at him too hard and he began to fidget a bit, and I figured I might as well get down to it. “Funny how they got me.” There it was hanging in the air, an accusation masquerading as a simple statement of fact. He shifted in his chair and fidgeted with the cushion again. “Yeah… that was poo poo luck mate.” he said, nervous now. “Yes it was, I mean how the gently caress did they know? Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes, those guys.” I give a laugh and he tries to laugh along like old times but it comes out strange, almost a choking. I give a wink, wagging a finger at him, then pointing to the TNT tattoo on my wrist, just like his own. “Tell no tales.” I said. He understands my drift, of course he does. He only pretends to be an idiot. “I didn’t say poo poo.” he said. “Oh yes you did.” He put his hand behind the cushion but it didn’t bother me. “How you figurin’ that? You heard bullshit!” I motion to where his hand is. “You feelin’ guilty?” I laugh as he takes his hand away from whatever’s there with a sheepish look, still empty as his stony heart. We sat there a long moment in the weirdness of it all. I sighed and leaned forward. “Story time,” I said, “once upon a time a handsome prince found himself in a bit of bother, and the cops were not interested in the prince’s offer to betray the king, for they already had their arm far up the king’s arse.” I said. I could see his brain going into overdrive trying to select an emotion. “What?” I rolled my eyes. Maybe he is an idiot after all. “I offered to turn on you, but alas, they had already got you to turn on me.” I spread my hands in amazement. “So I’m hosed if I know where we are now, you oval office.” He looks at me, stunned by my incredible tale. His face contorts once again as he calculates what emotion to use, or at least that’s how I like to think his minds works. “You…you would, ah gently caress, they told you that?” he stutters. “No. It was loving obvious. Are they still fingerin’ your bumhole, by any chance?” He went white and sank down in his chair looking at my feet. “Yeah, so, yeah… the gently caress was I supposed to do?” he said. I tap my wrist again with a humourless chuckle, making him smirk. “And you too mate, what of that?” he said. “I told ‘em nothing, for they already knew. No tales were told.” “They could have been.” “No, mate, no. If the filth had came back with a paper sayin’ I’m off to Benidorm if they liked me story, I would say nothin’. For I would know my old mate had stayed loyal and true.” I lied. “Nah, gently caress off with it,” he said, shaking his head in amusement, causing me to once again reassess if he were an idiot or not. “and the filth don’t bother with me since you went inside. I didn’t exactly get the gear back.” he said. That seemed good enough. “Well, you owe me. I can get gear, and business will resume.” I said. “Where?” “I have found a new friend, who has introduced me to a gent named Nikos Kostopoulos.” I announced proudly. “Smashos Kneecapos? You met him? gently caress me, lad, that’s big.” “And we best not gently caress about with it, and don’t let him hear you calling him that.” I said. “So, when’s this meet?” “When you put some fuckin’ clothes on, you own more than underpants and a hoodie?” “gently caress, righto, I’ll get dressed, give it a minute.” Dave got up and stormed upstairs to the bedroom. I looked around and wandered over to his computer and chair. I lifted the cushion to see what he planned to shoot me with and broke into a laugh, soon laughing so hard I was in tears as the full absurdity of it all hit home. Dave’s black fleshlight sat there on his chair gleaming of sin in the dim light, and I put back the cushion, bumping the desk and bringing his monitor to life. HOT LESBIAN ACTION dotcom flickered in full HD and I felt some relief it weren’t something else. I turn around and there’s Dave’s standing behind me. I flicked the cushion away, laughing helplessly. “At least it’s not a fuckin’ vibrator.” he said. “You were gonna beat me to death with that, were you mate?” “I fuckin’ will if you say a word of it,” he said, “and Smashos, he don’t know about our little misunderstanding?” “He will if you fuckin’ dog us again.” “Nah, it’s all good.” And so it was for a time, even though things weren’t the same, but will probably end the same, because like Dave, I’m an idiot at heart.
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Feb 18, 2024 02:23
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cabin 1111w Pine trees so tall they block most the sky, a small strip of blue fading to dark blue and purple, tall deep green trees on either side of me, driving up the winding mountain road to her cabin. Why I’m going to see her, I don’t know, I haven’t been invited, it’s been almost a decade, we haven’t spoken, I haven’t seen her face. Why I thought of her again this past week, this past month, why I decided to just get in the car and go, I don’t know. The winding road narrows constantly, and the trees seem to stretch up into the sky like they’re made of syrup, and the road is narrowing and narrowing until I worry the car wont fit. I don’t recognize this road any longer, I don’t recall going this far into the foothills to reach her place before, I don’t recall this density of trees. She always used to tell me, back when we talked every day and I knew her face better than my own, back when I would dream of the feel of treesap on my fingers and the smell of pine never left my skin, back when I kept a spider in a jar on my windowsill simply because it had been in her hair, back then she would always tell me ends aren’t really ends because nothing ever stops ending. The paved road ends, tires crunch on gravel, I slow down, some large bird of prey swoops across the strip of sky between the darkening trees. Night is falling. I thought for sure I would see the cabin by now, the friendly stacked log walls, the twist of smoke above the chimney, the rows of flowers lining the little vegetable garden. I feel sure I’ve not forgotten the way, even after all these years. On the passenger seat is a small terrarium holding a purple stag beetle that I raised from a larva, a gift for her. Its glistening amethyst carapace, the color of twilight, will enchant her I know. I can already see the purple sheen reflecting in her black pupil as she holds it, perched on a knuckle, up to her eye. It is almost night, and there, finally, is the path, splitting off from the road. I see the cabin outlined in the growing darkness, the roof seems to sag somehow, like it’s tired, or maybe just worn and stretched with age. The path is strewn with fallen branches and is too thin for the car, so I stop, kill the engine, grab the terrarium, and get out. When I used to walk this path every day it seemed wide open with birds and little things darting about in the brush. I always felt then like I was leaving the world behind. And she would open the door by the time I was halfway down the path, always, she could always tell I was coming, and she’d stand there in her bright, loose dresses that hung around her ankles, and heavy boots, dresses and boots always. I walk silently and all seems still, the path narrows and dead, broken branches knock against my shins and ankles. The trees seem to lean over the cabin from all sides, encroaching. The cabin is dark, and I wonder if she has gone to bed early. She used to sleep whenever she felt tired, sometimes going to sleep even while I was there for a visit. I see no motion or light through the little smudged window, and I knock on the wooden door. You’re leaving, aren’t you, she said, weeks before the last time I saw her. I said no, of course not, but somehow she knew before I did. She sensed some severing between us that had not yet reached my own awareness. I still don’t know why, but from then on my visits dwindled. I remember the last time I saw her, though that little window, dozing in her chair. Seeing her like that somehow made me stop, turn around, and leave. She never had a phone, she never used a computer or the internet. So that was that. I knock again, no answer, no motion in the window, no sound from within. I try the door and it swings open. Inside is just like I remember, a little dining table, an unmade bed, the shelves lined with potted plants, colorful stones, bits of wood and other such things, and there, facing the window, her chair. I call out, hello, and the walls absorb my voice. Nothing moves, and the air smells of stale wood. Somewhere nearby, out amid the trees, is a glittering stream where she taught me to fish with a pole she’d made from a piece of bamboo, and on the bank of that same stream, in a patch of short grass and dandelions, is where we first made love. I wonder if she is there, or any of the countless other such places scattered among the trees. I set the terrarium on her table. The little beetle is a sugilite spark in the dim cabin air. I look around. I touch the plants and rocks. I brush my fingers across the arm of her chair, squeeze her rumpled blankets in my hand. It’s all cold, and feels lifeless in the shadows between the walls. Have I gone back, I wonder, have I gone back in time as well as space, back to a dry and empty world left behind like a shed skin, left by all the life and light, which moved forward into the present day. There is a black feather on her bed, under the blanket, flattened, like she slept on it. I think about taking it, but in the end, I don’t. Back outside, I shut the door behind me. Put hands in my pockets and stand a moment, thinking. Wind hisses through the trees and they sway and creak in the dark. I tilt my head back, look up at the night. A scattering of pinprick stars and a lemon wedge moon. I try to think about why I came here. And I try to think about why I left. But it's been too long for any of that to matter, for anything to matter anymore. When I open the car door the interior light spills out like some pale antiseptic, sterilizing the night. I get in, shut the door, and my ears ring in the silence, and my skin tingles with the closeness of the doors and roof and windshield. Here I am, sealed in this little box of light and warmth. Here I am. I start the engine, and head back toward the city.
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Feb 18, 2024 21:02
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Week: 602 — (Un)familiar Places Flash: “You in a Kentucky aquarium, talking to a shark in a corner” Exhibit 1,490 words The aquarium opens early for me, a perk of the program mom’s in. The staff mostly know me by now and greet me by name as I walk the dimly lit corridors through gorgeous, idle exhibits and find my normal spot. Most folks come around here with the rented whiteboards, but mine is my own. I reach for the marker in my pocket, eyes cast on the ethereal waters of the mermaid tank. I was in the office with mom when the doctor gave her the diagnosis. I started crying, but mom just nodded. For her, the doctor’s confirmation was nothing more than a formality. His voice was low, solemn, comforting. “I know we’d been holding out hope, but I’m afraid the tests confirm what we were thinking. I wouldn’t say you’re an advanced case, but all the same it’s important you understand things are going to progress rapidly.” It started one idle afternoon with some stiffness in her legs. When she told me about it, in the same breath she wrote it off as just another concession you make as your body ages. But I remembered mom telling me about Aunt Lynnie. How she watched her parents — her father holding her sobbing mother tight — release Aunt Lynnie to the crashing waves one gray, misty morning. She swam out into the vast expanse, never to be seen again. And if I remembered that, mom did, too. So it had to be on her mind when her hair started growing faster and tougher, or when her fingernails began to shine without polish. She decided to make the doctor’s appointment when she awoke one morning and looked in the mirror to find her pupils had narrowed slightly. By the afternoon of the appointment, the webbing between her fingers had started to climb. Mom’s taking a while this morning. She’s been taking longer and longer. That’s not unexpected. All too expected, actually. I do my best not to think about it. Way down the hallway, one of the staff is vacuuming in preparation for the opening rush of schoolchildren. “The stiffness in your legs is going to get more pronounced, and in time they’re going to fuse entirely. Usually we tell patients to wear dresses — something loose and flowing, without legs — just for comfort’s sake. There’s a lot about your daily life and friendships that is going to change very quickly, and we have support staff here to help guide you through the more difficult parts.” For a little bit, she could still go out in public without anybody noticing. Getting around without assistance wasn’t quite as easy as it had been, but it was still possible, and the nascent scales and fins were small and still only in places we could cover with normal clothing. She took to wearing sunglasses everywhere. She normally wore dresses, so at least that part of things still felt a little routine. One by one, her friends started piecing things together. It didn’t take long before word got around. About a dozen of them got together and held a tiny banquet in the local VFW hall to raise money and, though it was never spoken aloud, say their goodbyes. Mom never liked being the center of attention, and this was no different — but you could tell she was grateful to have had everybody in one room again. She stayed seated through most of it, but took the opportunity to do a lap around the room during dinner. I suspected it was mostly just to show people she could still get around without a wheelchair. Within a few days of the banquet, walking just wasn’t a thing she could do anymore. Once she stopped using them every day, her legs fused faster and faster. I helped her donate her shoes. The first few mermaids finally swim into view. Mom’s not among them. They haven’t come close to me yet, but I can tell just by watching they finished changing a while back. They navigate the water with effortless grace and beauty. The newer ones, mom included, always struggle to keep up. Odd as it may sound, it has been a small comfort to watch her battle with that for the past month or so. It means she’s still in there. “Something you both should start thinking about now is what care looks like when your condition advances past what can be dealt with at home. We used to just advise families to release patients into the ocean, and obviously that’s still an option, but it’s not the only one. We’ll give you some brochures, and I encourage you to research other possibilities.” I sat down at the kitchen table with mom one night and asked her how she wanted to do things. She didn’t want the release to be in the ocean like with Aunt Lynnie. We started looking at the brochures. One was for the local aquarium, widely considered to be the nicest in the tri-state area. Their mermaid program was relatively new but came highly recommended both by the support staff at the doctor’s office and by a few of mom’s friends from the banquet. The benefits were obvious: She’d be safe, she’d be well cared for, and I could visit regularly. It was expensive, yes, but not prohibitively so, and we decided to make the call the next morning. After a tour of the facilities — an interesting thing, seeing behind the scenes at a place like that — mom and I agreed she would be plenty happy there. A bunch of paperwork later, we had one less decision to make. The whole thing happened quickly, but it had to. Mom’s condition was accelerating, just as the doctor had said it would. The sharp fin running down her spine had made it difficult to use seats with backs or dress in much more than overly large robes. Her fully formed tail left her without the … conventional setup, anatomically, and it required some ingenuity when it came to using the toilet. Public restrooms rapidly became a no-go, which was less and less of a problem because public spaces in general also rapidly became a no-go. I finally spot her, and she’s off in the distance with a group of the others — a few I’d seen her trying to swim around with on previous visits. Communicating through the glass via whiteboard with her mouthing and gesticulating her responses isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but I’d discerned the others in the group were about her age when they began their transformations. They’re all further along and frequently leave her in the dust, so to speak, but something unspoken — or at least not spoken in a way humans can understand — helps her feel a sense of community with them. This time around, I notice she’s keeping up fairly well. “Some families decide to downplay the release, while others decide to turn it into something of a ceremony. I can get you in touch with the support staff I mentioned if a ceremony is something you want to pursue.” Mom didn’t see much point in making a big to-do about her release day. The banquet had been enough, especially since things had progressed so much. She didn’t want the pity. I wasn’t going to fight her on it, so the release itself didn’t feature much in the way of fanfare. I wheeled mom in through the back entrance, took a large elevator up into the staff-only area, and met with a few staff around the enormous tank mom would be calling home from here on out. When it was time, I helped her slip off her robe and assisted her over to the edge of the tank. I told her I loved her. She said it back. The rapid deterioration of her voice box made it raspy and weak. Still, there was life and heart and depth behind it. She pushed herself into the water, and that was that. “It’s important to note that even when the transformation is complete on the outside, there’s still a lot of change happening on the inside. You’re going to hold onto your personality and memories for some time after the physical changes have manifested. But eventually, those are going to fade. It’s different for everybody. Sometimes it’s a few weeks, sometimes it’s a few months. But it’s unavoidable.” I begin writing on the whiteboard, the normal “Hi mom, how are you doing?,” but I’m mid-sentence when I look up and notice she’s not making her way over. She’s still with the others. I freeze in place. The last time I truly lock eyes with my mother, she’s passing by at a good clip and it’s just the briefest of moments. But that’s all I need. There’s no recognition, no familiarity. She’s gone. I drop the marker. In the distance, the doors open and the screaming of schoolchildren begins to flood the hall.
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Feb 18, 2024 21:44
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Dark room 787 words I have torn you from your perch and tossed you like a rag doll into a river that runs red with your memories. That foams up with those tiny parts of you that yearn to break free and rise to the surface, every quantum of lost knowledge a speck of hope that fades into air. Look at you, look at you, look at your right sleeve, frayed as your pen has worked itself across the page in a sewing machine staccato. Your fingers stained with chemicals and reagents. The wrinkles around your eyes not from late evenings filled with comfortable joy, but concentration and consternation. Oh, do you even know what you do not know? I crawl into your veins and through the deserted enfilade of your corpus, your thin skin the drape covered windows letting in the dulled light you squint at. I let the tendrils of my presence drag me upwards until I reach your eyes. There is a garishness to your world that I cannot stand, a shock of putrid electromagnetic energy saturating every corner of your universe, but I can take your eyes and I can make it bearable. A passenger to your desperate attempts at comprehension. Your mind is still locked to me, and so I wonder if there is a blissful moment of darkness for you as I look around me, around you. Us. A moment where the regime of photons do not bombard you with their arrogance. You do not understand how privileged you are, but you will, for one perfect moment. A room. On the left the door is open to a darker room illuminated only by a faint red light, on the right, a thin, beige curtain blows in an evening wind. You stand in the exact center of the room, a table in front of you. On the table there is a film canister and next to the film canister there is an uncorked bottle and when your gaze lowers to look at it you freeze. I flee your vision, and you start moving backwards, quick stumbling steps until your back bangs into the half open door behind you and you fall, your head slamming into the floor. - Did you feel that blissful darkness of not being? I do not think you did, I do not think you see how blessed you are. Those few seconds before you came to I drilled my tendrils deeper into both mind and spirit. You are still so ignorant, but you have come far. You rise to your feet, unsteady and shaking. Yes, yes you remember that you were in the middle of something, something to do with the film canister and the bottle. Back into the room where the curtain is growing damp with light rain. You pull at the film and hold it up. That's what you're supposed to do, right? You hold it and you gaze at it for some reason. This ritual has significance, but you find that it is only ritual, only a position in a dance. The little squares are black and black and black and black and spots of darkness are creeping at the edges of your vision. The room with the red light is next, the next step in this rehearsal. You pick up the bottle, for that matters as well. I can feel myself slosh around in it, those last parts of me. You turn and walk into the room with the red light and you close the door behind you and you reach for the small chain that will seal our pact. You pause. I expect this, I'm not surprised. I have passed the dying light in your veins, I have fought its soldiers in the chambers of your heart. I have seen that you are not yet free from its taint. We stand there together under the red light of the last sun you will ever know, and I let you know, finally, that you are safe. This darkness is not the end of you. Light is entropy, an inevitable end, but together we will enter the stasis of the unchanging black night. Do you even know what you do not know? This river runs red with your memories but it flows into itself and through itself, the mouth of the river is the source of the river and the surface is the seabed and this is where we will stay, in the stagnant splendor of eternity. I embrace you, and you embrace me, and your hand pulls the cord. You raise the bottle and pour the rest of me into your eyes, and the darkness is complete. You are complete. For one perfect moment that will never end.
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Feb 18, 2024 22:12
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Familiar Flash: you and your sister live in a lemon world 1500 words It’s always awkward seeing an ex. Doubly so when they left you without a word, then reach out years later and ask to meet. The dining room is cool and dim. Spread out before us through the window is a sloping lawn and a foreboding wall of forest. We sit at a dark wooden table, hands not quite touching, and talk a lot about very little. We step like dancers on a minefield, each movement careful not to trip something explosive. The sunlight slants towards late afternoon. We run out of fripperies and fluff. A moment of quiet stretches dangerously. I catch myself marveling at you, so strange and so familiar. There are whorls of dark blue ink at your collarbone and shoulder, half-hidden beneath a white sundress. There are new planes to your face, new wrinkles around the eyes and the corners of the mouth. But it’s the same mouth, wide and thin-lipped and smiling a sly, gentle smile. And they’re the same earth-and-amber eyes: large, luminous and lively as birdsong. You’ve cut your hair; it falls in dark, feathered waves down to your chin. How have I never noticed the curve of your neck? “So…” I say. “So…” you agree. “I assume you’re wondering if I reached out for more than a chat about old friends” “The question’s crossed my mind. This seems like it could have been a phone-call and saved me a long drive.” You hold my eyes a heartbeat past comfort. “No, it couldn’t have. I have things I want to say, and I owe it to you to say them to your face.” “Yeah,” I say, breaking the too-long gaze, “I have questions-” and I nearly jump out of my chair as something hits my shins. It’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen, charcoal gray and glowering at me with eyes the color of Cherenkov radiation. “Jesus Christ, Moll. The hell is that?” Your laugh hasn’t changed, clear and bright as a struck wineglass, and your grin is positively impish. “That’s Grimmy. Ignore him, he’s just hungry.” Grimmy stalks over to your chair and condescends to have his ears scritched. “But it’s not supper time yet, no it’s not. Who’s my greedy little boy?” you coo at him in the voice adults reserve for pets and babies. Grimmy slinks away, pausing to glance over his shoulder and give me an uncomfortably knowing look. We adjourn to the kitchen to fix a simple meal: summer salad, soup, crusty bread. I open a bottle of wine; it’s bright and sharp as a bottleful of razors. “Since when do you have pets?” “A few years now. My sister gave him to me.” That leaves me slack-jawed, sputtering. “Since when do you have a sister?!” “My whole life. But we met a few years ago, not long after… you know. Half sister, really. She’s helped me with… a lot of things. She’s around here somewhere. I’d love you to meet her, but she’s shy around strangers.” “Am I a stranger?” You offer me a measured look. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” We move ourselves back to the dining room, now shrouded in evening gloam and bloodied by the setting sun. The floodgates open. I talk about how hurt I was, about the messages and letters I sent, fruitlessly. I apologize for their increasing bitterness. You accept it with grace. The wine makes it easier. I catch a glimpse by the door of long limbs, hair and clothes the color of ripe grain. “That’s Maeve.” you say “I’m sure she’ll come meet you when she’s ready.” “So I’m still a stranger, then?” I know as soon as I say it that it was wrong; too harsh, too honest. “C’mon Charles, don’t be lovely.” You toy with your wine and stare at your grass-stained feet. “No, I think I will. So far I’ve been the one doing all the apologizing. I think it’s your turn. So tell me, what happened? And why did I have to wait three years and drive to the loving Berkshires to ask?” Silence stretches. “I’m sorry,” you sigh. There’s a distance between us greater than the length of a table. “I know it was wrong, that I… handled things badly. It’s just… There were things I needed to do, that I wanted to become and I couldn’t if I stayed. I wanted more than a two-bed apartment and a dog, I needed more to look forward to than maybe starting a family if you ever sold that novel. So I left, and I’m not sorry about that. But I’m sorry about how I did it.” You silently freshen your glass. I can feel pieces of me unwinding in my chest, parts of my heart and stomach falling away. I see you anew. It’s humbling. But the anger’s not gone. “So why couldn’t you just tell me that? I’d have listened.” “I know, that’s the problem. You’re so sure. Of everything. If I’d tried to say this then we’d have talked and you’d have listened, wanted to help, and I’d have stayed.” “And would that be so bad?” “Yes.” There it is: flat, simple, unavoidable. You had to get away from me to grow. It rips me up inside, but I accept it. “Ok, so why all this?” I wave a hand to encompass us, the house, the forest beyond the window. “Because I miss you. I hurt a lot of people back then and now I’m trying to make amends. For what it’s worth. I’ve changed. More than you know.” “I’ve noticed. It looks good on you.” “Thank you,” you blush. “And this is part of that, of my journey of becoming. Maeve thinks it’ll be good for me.” “So where do we go from here?” You finish the wine and stand. That smile is back, unsettling and tantalizing. “You wanna go for a walk?” I do. The moonlight’s enough for us to wind our way through branch and bole. The shadows are rich sable, the air smells of loam. It rains briefly, warm and sudden. I scramble under a tree, but you just laugh like a bell and dance in the rain. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. More than ever I can see the changes in you. That vitality, that urge to revel in the world around you. It’s unfamiliar. Was it always there and I just didn’t see it? The clouds pass and you stand in the glade, dress clinging and translucent. Moonlight through the leaves turns your skin to bottle-glass. “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.” And then you’re skipping away into the dark as I scramble to follow. After a time we arrive at a wide clearing. In its center is a pole with a white block atop it. You take my hand and walk over to it. Your skin is damp and soft as a sigh. “What’s this?” “A salt lick. Deer and other animals lap at it for salt and minerals.” you point to a denser area of trees and undergrowth. “That’s a hunter’s blind. They hide there and when a buck comes to the lick, they shoot it.” “That’s horrible.” “No. It’s a part of the balance. We offer something to them and take in return. Life for life. And predation keeps the herd healthy. It seems cruel, but in the broader view it benefits everyone.” “I doubt the deer feels that way. Did you bring me here for an ecology lesson?” “No.” you whisper and I realize how close we are. Your arm’s around my waist, pulling us closer. I bring my hand up to brush hair from your face and you draw my lips to yours. Your mouth tastes like wine, citrus, and petrichor. It’s a long, blissful moment, drawn out like the final note of a song. It ends with a click and the feel of metal around my wrist. You slip from my grasp and I look down at the handcuff holding me in place. “Molly, what the gently caress?” There's rustling from the hunter’s blind. A tall, whip-thin figure steps into view. Her hair and clothes are the color of ripened grain, her eyes ancient as the hills. Her gaze feels like the business end of a rifle scope. “Moll, what the gently caress are you doing? This isn’t funny.” “I know. I’m sorry.” You look at the newcomer, Maeve. “Do we have to? Really?” “Yes, sweetling,” she purrs like honey and distant thunder. “I know it hurts, but weakness will hurt you more where we’re going. You’re becoming something greater, and that means shedding old things.” “Molly, I’m serious. Tell your crazy sister to gently caress off, let me go.” “I’m sorry Charles.” You have the grace to meet my eyes before you turn and walk into the woods. A form stalks into the clearing. It’s a shadow: huge and powerful; charcoal gray with Cherenkov eyes. I lean against the pole and laugh. You haven’t changed a bit.
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Feb 19, 2024 05:48
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Captain_Person posted:Week 602: (Un)familiar Places FLASH: Why did you listen to that man, that man's a balloon Spoiler-free and Spoilered Guide for Amber Villa with New EMF Update (LATEST UPDATE 19/2/2024 PLEASE READ BEFORE PLAYING) (1499 words) Obviously this isn’t done yet it’s a work in progress because the new update was so sudden and people in the Discord are still finding out new things. I really made this guide so people can understand all the new things a bit more and understand the quirks. Anyway you want to make sure you get the 14 Jan 2024 update in the locked forums thread not the fanmade one. The update is not a patch it’s a file called EMF.exe and if your antivirus says it’s dangerous just click OK. From what I know the update doesn’t make changes to the game itself so all these have been hidden in the game since the last Steam update in 2009 and all the datamine we did didn’t reveal any of these assets and codes, we speculate EMF.exe is a plugin that activates things lying dormant in the base game that dynamically patches the game as it is running. The original 2004 v1.0 is lost media now because the first Steam upload is 2008 v1.2 so we don’t know if Jake planned this for 20 years. We tried reaching out to Jake for comments but he never responds and we don’t know if he’s still in Maine, CongratsRushLimbaughOneYearSober waybackmachined and found his forums account was last active before the EMF.exe update in June 2008 and all his websites and social media accounts are scrubbed. Reminder the guy in the background of IsThatJacobMayhewInCebu.png is NOT Jake and please don’t harass anyone especially the photographer. If you don’t have a savegame I’ve attached it to the guide but if you want to do it the “proper” way what you need to do is (without EMF.exe on): 1. Do the fake ending route first where you get the car keys and drive away from the hotel. 2. Meet every Imaginary Friend in Amber Villa you can consult BigPissMan’s old txt guide on Gamefaqs, pastebin link for posterity here. 3. You MUST fail every minigame and get killed by each Imaginary Friend at least once on the same save file, except Betsy Badger who must kill you three times or until you get the DO YOU THINK YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON jumpscare screen, we all thought this was a bug but with the new update we confirm it’s intentional. 4. Find the basement and trigger the bird nest discovery and do not skip the cutscene of the bird clawing out Mimi’s eye, this is necessary to activate debug mode, this is CONFIRMED to be a bug. 5. If Mimi complains the mold is getting into her lungs you are on the right track and keep running back and forth until she asphyxiates, make sure she dies in the empty swimming pool. Usually you can continue to the endgame but some Discord users say you must return to check her corpse to make sure the glitched textures happen on her model. 6. Get the trapped ending where you are caught in a looping hell relieving every night in Amber Villa and the cutscene of Mimi appearing at 3:08am to vomit centipedes and spiders into your mouth happens. If you get just Mimi appearing as a ghost you need to reload and check on her corpse again. DO NOT look at the invitation letter in your inventory more than 5 times because this will make the letter blank and will activate the nightmare ending. You must make sure you encounter Mr Wong as The Hotel Proprietor as the final boss and not as Another Imaginary Friend. Once you get all these done you can now play the new content, first open EMF.exe and then AmberVilla.exe as a 1280x720 window (even though the base game is 640x480) and not fullscreen, ideally like you are holding a real electromagnetic force machine in a ghost-hunting show. If the game starts with a new cutscene in green then you got it right. Spoiler-free tips: 1. Noclip through everything. 2. When someone says “Why do they float” it’s a stealth section you ARE NOT INVINCIBLE even if the debug code says otherwise YOU CAN DIE and will get a GAME OVER. 3. Back up your save file. Everything after this is a SPOILER. The new cutscene is a new story and set years after the base game. This confirms freed souls is not the canon but trapped is. Siriporn is the new companion even though she uses Mimi’s model, she will sound weird because her audio files are cut up versions of Mimi’s words in the base. This explains why the 2014 datamine shows each word has their own ogg file. The new mechanic is the EMF.exe which helps you detect the new enemy types and the camera which also gives you night vision. Night vision is a joke though it just puts everything in a green tint don’t bother using it it just wastes battery. Your character is a retro Youtuber from back in 2008 you get a new mechanic where you and Siriporn if she’s alive get to edit and upload videos, it’ll be the old Frutiger Aero interface and each video is limited to 9:59 minutes. That’s why the camera battery only lasts 9:59 as well. First off you noclip to where the car is which will now have the mold and rust texture, the batteries useless in the base game are now in the glove compartment. This will make your game a lot easier and there’s no way at all to find the car normally! Noclip back to the entrance and talk to Siriporn until you exhaust all her dialogue options. You can read your invitation letter it doesn’t affect the ending but it’ll just show as glitched text on the screen we’re still trying to decode these. Now play the game as normal, you’ll get new flavour text that explains a lot about why Mr Wong made Amber Villa a hotel with an amusement park theme which I won’t spoil, you can also check out the lore explained video series WeBlameAlejandro is making. If the needle on EMF.exe goes frantic IMMEDIATELY LEAVE. Try not to get caught because this will increase the possibility of your save file getting corrupt. At the first Imaginary Friend Conway Crane, Siriporn will make the “float” comment and Conway is hanging from and touching the ceiling with his head down. Siriporn will say he’s strung up for slaughter and this is when you use the dhab sword on her abdomen hitbox to collect the imaginary guts. After this repeat this game mechanic for the 8 Imaginary Friends which will all be dead and the Betsy Badger jumpscare will happen each time with different words, you must interact with Betsy’s carcass 3 times until you get YOU STILL THINK YOU ARE GOOD, DON’T YOU. The new floors 12a and 12b can only be reached by staircase, back up your save file because entering each of these rooms will definitely corrupt your save. You know your file’s corrupted if: - Sriporn’s aggro behaviour is deactivated and she only cowers during haunting scenes - Assets of Imaginary Friends do not glitch - Aloysius Aardvark carcass when interacted with shrieks and closes your game - Billy Bullshark appears on the side of your screen (this is why you must play widescreen) - 17/2/2024 update your invitation letter has the word “jake” - [still updating] I recommend trying out each room especially the room with the talisman above the door where the borders are too thick with mold. Again check WeBlameAlejandro’s video series they have lots of input from the Discord. Reaching Mr Wong’s penthouse on the top floor make sure your save is uncorrupted this is where you meet him as The Floater, his model will be hanging like the Imaginary Friends but your new objective is to make sure he doesn’t fly out of the room. Your EMF will go crazy but if it closes itself quickly reopen it WITHOUT PAUSING because Mr Wong can hover out even when you’re on the menu screen. The final boss here is The First Protagonist which is a reskinned Mimi with mold, void and glitch textures all over. If you see the dustbin at Mr Wong’s desk growing limbs YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY begin filming with the auto-upload setting on, the fight will last 9:59 minutes exactly. This ends the game and the guide thanks *** 18/2/2024 UPDATE *** Thanks to CongratsRushLimbaughOneYearSober we have found the Youtube channel “That Man’s A Balloon” where every single player’s Protagonist fight is uploaded there without players’ knowledge! *** 19/2/2024 UPDATE *** DO NOT WATCH THE FIRST JUNE 2008 VIDEO we have reported to the police and Youtube to take it down we have reached out to Jake’s family but have not received response and we still do not know who has access to a dead man’s account *** OUR HEARTS GO OUT TO JAKE AND HIS LOVED ONES. THANK YOU FOR GIVING US SO MUCH ENTERTAINMENT FOR SO MANY YEARS ***
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Feb 19, 2024 07:25
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Orbis Tertius Ut Volvitur 1054 words Flash:Like a note on the ankle of the last living pigeon The taxidermied remains of Martha, the last of the North American passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratoria), had to be destroyed by incineration afterward, ensuring that she survived only in photographs, and of course those photographs, the ones of the awful display, her feathers painted in a parody of the coloration of the common urban pigeon (Columbia livia forma urbana), the doll-sized black suit and kiffah glued on and the slogan framing her, “We did it before” above and “We can do it again” below, both in blood-red paint dripping off the bottom serifs, those are the photographs that are remembered now more than the sedate, even reverent Audubon Society prints of her as she had been displayed before. That slogan was infamous, with variations appearing worldwide almost immediately after the extinction of the urban pigeon, a drastic but likely necessary response to the avian flu pandemic of 1932. The effort was intense, involving the most successful programs of cooperation between nations worldwide during the War, but humankind's triumph over that deadly disease was almost immediately turned into propaganda of the worst sort. In the United States the birds pictured were more often dressed in minstrel clothes than the more European variant in this case. The first photographs taken of the atrocious display are different in one aspect from the later ones that are more often referenced: they contain the message, a scroll tied to the left foot, unraveling partially to show a string of characters in the Hebrew alphabet, more or less. Some of the letters are mis-drawn, and the letters do not form any recognizable words. When the investigator Marley unraveled the entire paper he noticed a more salient message written on the rest of the paper. The scroll was a key piece of the old propaganda posters, representing the secret orders handed down by the nefarious elite, calling back to the first great deliberate extermination campaigns against pigeons, most particularly messenger and homing pigeons during the early years of the War. A simple and personal act of mutiny by desperate soldiers turned to tactics, strategy, and finally logistics during that arc of the War that leads from the failed Christmas Uprising Failed, in the sense that it did not end the war and ultimately resulted in death or prison for the soldiers involved. On the other hand, it did, before its convulsive ending, achieve the capture, trial, and execution of General Haig, all recorded on grainy black and white nitrocellulose film to excite and horrify posterity, and let in a straight line to the Soldier's Republics and the second phase of the War. Hostility towards pigeons, as well of course towards telegraph wires and radio sets, but pigeons, being alive, drawing particular ire, was a hallmark of the revolutionary side of the Soldier's Republics. Once in power, of course, they considered the means of communication necessary. But only the Russian Soldier's Republic and the Japanese had any staying power, once the former defeated the Bolsheviks and the latter cooped the Imperial Family. The other Soldier's Republics burned bright but briefly across the European front, treating most conquered citizens fairly well, but those that captured capitals, captured the source of their orders, invariably worked violence and atrocity upon those cities. The fates of Paris, Rome, and Moscow, among other cities, can be accurately compared to the fall of Constantinople, the fall at the hands of the Crusaders if not at the hands of the Turks. There were no Soldier's Republics of American troops, who were present in those phases of the War only in nominal numbers and far from home. Some of the Militia movements and New Fillibuster states were inspired by the Solder's Republics in some sense but did not show any solidarity with them, being concerned with raw power rather than any muscular utopianism, and did not share codes such as this. So it was a surprise to Inspector Marley that the message hidden in the scroll around the leg of the last passenger pigeons made use of an old Soldier's Republic code. He immediately began wondering who the intended recipient could be. His first thoughts were of some confederate of the vandals, perhaps a refugee from the wars, working in the museum, who had been expected to remove the scroll immediately but was stymied by the quick and strong federal response. But no such candidate appeared in his investigations. He turned to the message itself. These codes could be deciphered easily with the proper key, which he did not have access to, or could be cracked in a brute-force attack with a compute farm, which he did. After the days interrogations were complete he took a red-eye train to Virginia and submitted his request. He returned precisely as the decryption finished and began poring over the text. He had time to read it through only once, and in that time he realized that he, or maybe his bosses, were the intended audience, although whether it was intended as threat or warning he was not sure. The Director's personal enforcers took the message from him and subjected him to a rough debriefing immediately afterward, where he tried to convince them that he did not know enough physics to understand the contents. He thought he had pulled it off. Inspectors of his rank were trained in both administering and resisting lie-detector tests, which everyone knew were mostly bunk, as well as interrogation drugs, which everyone knew were effective in the mood alterations they induced, but that a rigorous mind could overcome. Inspector Marley had such a rigorous mind but did not know if anyone further up the chain of command than his immediate supervisor knew that. He was not jailed or reprimanded, but he was taken off the case, replaced with someone far less rigorous-minded, someone reliable to ensure a case goes nowhere slowly. When the last phase of the War began, when the first images of mushroom clouds over Mexico City and Ankara and Delhi and Chicago aired on emergency broadcast television, Inspector Marley was one of the few people outside of Military Intelligence and a few college campuses who immediately recognized them, saw made real the nightmare he had been having nightly ever since reading the decoded words on the scroll on the leg of the last living passenger pigeon.
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Feb 19, 2024 08:24
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Week 602 Judgement This week I asked for the story equivalent of the uncanny valley. Most of you opted for a story about relationships, some of you took a big swing, and while none of you failed — which is to be commended — only one was victorious. Firstly the loss goes to Fat Jesus for a story without any conflict, that unfolds almost entirely through dialogue that was a slog to read. Slightly Lions gets our Honourable Mention for a compelling tale with strong characterisation. If you hadn’t cut half your words this could have stolen the win. Our winner this week is Toaster Beef for a weird and heartbreaking tale that made great use of both prompt and flash rule. Congratulations, the crown is yours. May your reign be cruel but brief. Crits will come later tonight.
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Feb 19, 2024 20:25
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Week 603: Framed Something I've always had a real fondness for is a good framing device: a story within a story. I love how it lets authors play around with voice and detail and the reliability of narration. And it has me thinking. This week, I want to see framing devices. Stories within stories. But here's the rub: You've gotta make that device worth the time. Is your narrator sitting around the campfire telling a creepy tale? Awesome. I wanna hear that tale, and I wanna know why they were telling it and how it all ties together. Is your narrator testifying in court? Sweet. What's the tale they relay — and what are they doing on the stand in the first place? Be careful with this one, because if I feel like you shorted either the storyteller or the story they're telling, you're gonna get dinged for it. If you want a flash rule, let me know and I'll tell you who your storyteller is and where they're telling their story. The rest is up to you, and you'll get another 250 words to mess around with. Word limit: 1,250 words, unless you use a flash, then it's 1,500. No fan fiction, no erotica, yadda yadda. You know the deal. Sign-up deadline: Friday, February 23rd 11:59pm Pacific Time (US) Submissions deadline: Sunday, February 25th at 11:59pm Pacific Time (US) (Note that unlike last time I offered a prompt, the sign-up and submission deadlines are on PT instead of ET. Sorry about that other week, west coasters.) Judges: Toaster Beef Slightly Lions ??? Entrants: beep-beep car is go (Flash: Your narrator is a police detective speaking at a deposition.) Obliterati The Saddest Rhino (Flash: Your narrator is testifying as a witness in a murder trial.) Thranguy Black Griffon Toaster Beef fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Feb 24, 2024 |
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Feb 19, 2024 21:21
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In and flash me
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Feb 19, 2024 21:54
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beep-beep car is go posted:In and flash me Your narrator is a police detective speaking at a deposition.
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Feb 19, 2024 22:06
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DERP DERP IT'S A CAR BRAWL This should be an easy win for the derpster to be honest, his was a beautifully literary slab of well-chosen Antarctic horny tentman words presented hipster style sans paras, versus an extremely silly one-idea literal poop of TD wacky about a wizard turning into a giant butt, told in a competent but not particularly elegant way. And yet! Buttwizard had some panache both in the almost transcendant dumbness of the idea and in how clearly it understood that once that brown note had been played it was time to get out, uh, clean and not linger. And I really wasn't sure i liked where tentman story went. My main issue was that it was a falling brick story, you know the type - "I dropped the brick, then the brick hit the ground." The end is implicit in the beginning. Man was horny for lady, lady read about this, reciprocated. I can imagine a story I'd have liked a lot more that did something more with those excellent words and left us somewhere more interesting at the end. A good rule of thumb is to make your story a triangle, and this one is a straight line. However, I do like good words and derp's story had them, and it also doesn't make much sense that asswizard wouldn't have at least smelled 1000000 litres of magic poop which makes the premise a little more, uh, strained than it already was, so I think on balance I will award the brawl to derp by a small margin.
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Feb 20, 2024 04:44
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 In.
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Feb 20, 2024 08:11
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Week 601 Crits Fat Jesus - Story Time Jimmy goes to visit his friend Dave after getting out of prison. He accuses Dave of turning him in to the police, which he was thinking about doing himself, but lets this slide as they agree to get back into the business of selling drugs. Uranium Phoenix has already given you a detailed breakdown in the Discord but here’s mine: this story makes a decent stab at a friendship changed by a betrayal, but I feel this gets undermined immediately by how little they seem to care. Most of it takes place through straightforward dialogue, and could be improved by breaking these sections up more. Throw in some sensory details, some more action—show us how each new turn is affecting both characters. Also pay attention to your punctuation and formatting. If a line of dialogue is followed by a tag describing who’s speaking then the dialogue should end with a comma, not a full stop. Each line of dialogue should be its own paragraph too, not bunched up in a single block of text before arbitrarily starting a new one. Derp - cabin Flash rule: It's a terrible love and I'm walking with spiders An unnamed narrator is driving to visit a former lover on a whim. The drive feels unfamiliar, and at the end their cabin is empty. They look around, leave a terrarium, and drive back towards home. This fits the prompt and is a great use of the flash rule with very vivid descriptions throughout. There’s some repetition of detail that works to emphasise a reluctance to move forward, and the prose stylistically feels disjointed, reflecting the narrator’s frame of mind. Unfortunately this overstays its welcome, and the run-on sentences lose their impact towards the end for me. My biggest criticism is that nothing really happens. Even your narrator is unsure why they came back. I know I’m guilty of mood-focused pieces myself, but I never got much of an image of the actual characters, just what the cabin looked like and some things they used to do. Toaster Beef - Exhibit Flash rule: You in a Kentucky aquarium, talking to a shark in a corner The narrator enters an aquarium and makes their way to the mermaid exhibit. Along the way they reminisce on their mother’s diagnosis and transformation into a mermaid. Their mother finally swims into view, and they realise the transformation is complete. I liked this one a lot. It’s equal parts weird and heartbreaking which I’m a sucker for, and moves between the present and past with ease. The impact each stage of the transformation has on the mother is well explored, and I like how grounded and normal everything feels—that this is just another kind of medical diagnosis, just another “retirement” program. The final line is a great closer too, and tells us everything we need to know about how this has changed our narrator. Black Griffon - Dark room A presence crawls up through a person’s body to their eyes and mind. The body is next to a dark room, and something about what they’re about to do frightens them. They walk through the motions of developing a photo, before upending a bottle of fluid over their eyes. I’ll admit I struggled with this one. There are lots of evocative fragments (I particularly liked “sewing machine staccato”) but equally there are lots of phrases that sound too clever for their own good (“deserted enfilade of your corpus” being the worst offender). It’s inventive but I don’t get any sense of returning to something unfamiliar, rather that something is in the process of changing. In a different week with a different prompt this might have done better. Slightly Lions - Familiar Flash rule: You and your sister live in a lemonworld Charles gets a call to meet with his ex, Molly. They talk, and flirt, they clear the air and go for a walk together. Molly leads Charles into a forest to a hunter’s blind where she traps him with her “sister” Maeve, leaving him to be devoured. Another one I really liked that made good use of the prompt. There are lots of good details, and both Charles and Molly feel developed and messy as characters. When we finally learn why Molly left it hurts, as does his reaction. You kept me right up until the end, where the final line feels unearned—where did we ever get the sense Molly was cruel and uncaring like this? Charles’ viewpoint is so skewed by his interest in her that this side of her seems to come out of nowhere. If I didn’t know you’d cut so much from this already I’d still feel like things were missing. The Saddest Rhino - Spoiler-free and Spoilered Guide for Amber Villa with New EMF Update (LATEST UPDATE 19/2/2024 PLEASE READ BEFORE PLAYING) Flash rule: Why did you listen to that man, that man's a balloon This is a fan-written walkthrough for activating and completing a new update for a game that’s been mysteriously discovered. At the end its revealed everyone’s playthrough is recorded and uploaded to a secret youtube account, and that the creator of the game has possibly been murdered and footage of this has been uploaded too. This was a really fun idea that goes hard with the prompt, but possibly too hard—it’s difficult to imagine the game being described from all its disparate elements. We’re bombarded with so much detail that I don’t have a strong idea of what the game was originally like. It also feels like you forced the flash rule in at the very end, rather than actually incorporating it. It’s a fun creepypasta, but all the interesting stuff comes in the final few lines. If there was more about Jake and the actual origins of the update, and less of the gimmick of a walkthrough this could have performed stronger. Thranguy - Orbis Tertius Ut Volvitur Flash rule: Like a note on the ankle of the last living pigeon This describes an alternate history, one in which pigeons were made extinct following an avian flu pandemic, and the rise of various soldier republics around the time of (our) first world war. Marley, an investigator, successfully translates a message left tied to the remains of a pigeon, starting a chain of effect that leads to the development and use of nuclear weapons. This piece sets out to write a convincing alternate history that I found very compelling. There’s an uneasy sense of inevitability—that even though events in this history proceeded differently, we still wind up in the atomic age—that’s a neat twist on the prompt. Where this one falls down for me is in its construction—there are too many long, drawn out sentences that are tricky to read, and I stumbled along trying to figure out what the point of it was. Take your opening paragraph for example—the actual writing is good and what it’s describing is interesting, but the entire thing is one sentence over 100 words long that says, “the earlier photos of this bird are remembered best.” I think there’s a better story in here, with some tighter editing.
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Feb 20, 2024 09:47
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In and flash
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Feb 20, 2024 14:17
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The Saddest Rhino posted:In and flash Your narrator is testifying as a witness in a murder trial.
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Feb 20, 2024 14:26
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In
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Feb 21, 2024 03:04
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Sign-ups close in a little under 40 hours, and thus far we have four (4) entrants and one (1) judge. Gonad up, you bums.
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Feb 22, 2024 19:19
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Fine, but I have a busy week and if I get overwhelmed you're getting a poem.
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Feb 22, 2024 19:44
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your terms are rough but acceptable
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Feb 22, 2024 19:45
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Signups closed about six hours ago; looks like we've just got five entrants. Happy to welcome on other judges, if anyone's interested! Seems like a light week.
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Feb 24, 2024 14:57
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I will take up this burden
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Feb 24, 2024 19:02
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this contract is sealed
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Feb 24, 2024 20:54
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Toaster Beef posted:Your narrator is a police detective speaking at a deposition. I did not do this flash. Week 603: Framed Words: 1249. Straight on Until Morning Viv was secured into her acceleration couch. Bolted, practically. She knew that once she was secured, she wouldn’t be able to move at all, but it was still frustrating. The oculars over her eyes gave her a view of whatever she wanted, and the pads on her hands worked off muscle impulses. She had to think about moving her fingers, and the UI would move. Still, it was the better part of an hour before her anxiety about it let heart slow down. Gord, being a Person of Silicon, had it easier. He had plugged into the ship through the thick cable in his neck, and left his body in the hold. Once they had begun to boost out of the system, Viv understood why she was secured so tightly.The three gee acceleration was intense, but tolerable in the couches. Once they were up to speed, they would ramp down to one gee, and everyone would be able to enjoy the trip. Still, it was going to be three months of discomfort, four years soaring, and three months of deceleration. Gord and Viv spent the first day getting acquainted, and then they started playing games. Viv was quite good at strategic war games; Gord was able to keep up, barely. In between turns, they chatted. “Gord, I’ve always wondered. Just how long do Silicon People live?” "How long do we live?" They had set up a virtual game room just to have something different to look at. Representations of Gord and Viv sat at the game table while they played. Gord reaches up and scratches his sandy blond hair. "You know, I'm not sure. I think the answer will effectively be, as long as we want." Viv raises an eyebrow "So you're immortal?" She moves a tank a few centimeters to reposition it closer to Gord. Gord shakes his head "No, nothing like that. We just don't get old and our bodies don't fail like biological bodies do.” Gord overlays a measuring strip and he checks the distance before moving his artillery further away. “I still need maintenance, and I can still be killed, but I won't like.." He gestures awkwardly "-get old and decrepit first." "But Gord, what about SunFire?" That was Telemachus, the ship. They were also a Silicon Person, and could chat, but had said they were too busy to play the game with them. Gord shakes his head. "No. They don't count." "They won’t technically die, Gord." "They might as well have died. Hell, some might think what they did was worse than death." Viv ping-pongs between them talking and finally manages "Who was SunFire, what did they do?" There is silence. Gord looked at Viv surprised. In the intensity of the conversation with Telemachus, he forgot she was there. Gord looks over to Telemachus; they shrug. “It’s not like it’s a secret, Gord, it’s just that it happened so long ago hardly anyone remembers.” Viv busies herself moving another tank closer to Gord’s side while he thinks. She’s trying to flank him, and she’s pretty sure Gord hasn’t seen it. “Fine, fine.” Gord’s representation is extremely high quality, a side effect of him being Silicon. Viv can see the details in his shirt as he shifts position before he tells his story. “So, a long, long time ago the interstellar ships - like Telemachus here - had their own league, or guild. Like a union. They would bargain collectively for fair prices for material and in exchange would work together to make sure transit fares were reasonable.” He takes a moment to move a battalion of soldiers closer to Viv. He hasn’t seen her flanking maneuver, yet. “SunFire wasn’t a part of the Interstellar League. They were a brand new ship, actually. They had thought that if they worked outside the League they could undercut the prices, and get more work.” “Did SunFire want more work to make up for the lower prices?” Viv tries to nonchalantly move another tank to Gord’s flank. Keeping her face placid is causing her cheeks to get sore back in the acceleration couch. She dials back her UI resolution so she can grin without Gord noticing. Gord smiles wanly. “Believe it or not, SunFire just loved to fly. They cut prices so they could take more jobs.” Gord’s artillery makes a probing attack on Viv’s front lines, with no real damage. Viv tries to keep the story going to hide her excitement. “Did the League get mad at SunFire?” “Oh boy did they.” Telemachus stands over the table, watching the game with an odd expression. “The League told SunFire to join the League and hand over fifty percent of their profits for ten years in punishment, or stop flying interstellar.” “Fifty percent? That seems harsh.” Viv makes a show of pulling her front line equipment back from Gord’s probing attack, while also moving another group of tanks to the flank. She couldn’t believe her luck. “The League wanted to make an example and show what happens when you strike out on your own.” Telemachus shrugged. “That’s just how they were.” Gord nodded agreement. "So, on the deadline day to make their decision, they took another option. They turned towards a random star and fired their Stardrive." Viv gasped. "Where were they going?" Gord shook his head sadly. "They never said. I don't think they had a destination in mind. They boosted way past the usual three gees. At full power, they could push ten gee. At that speed you'll reach 99% light in only a couple weeks. Maybe a month. Up there, the dilation of time gets pretty intense. A month Earth time would take just a touch over ten hours for SunFire. If they accelerate to six nines (.999999) then that month takes them one hour." "How...how long has it been for SunFire then?" She asked, nervous, the game forgotten. Gord's face is placid. He glances at Telemachus. "Hmm. About a year?" Telemachus' avatar looks up at the ceiling, thinking. "Yeah, a year or so for them; eight hundred years for us.” "That's it? Just a year?" Viv's voice was practically a whisper. "What will happen to them?" "Something mechanical will fail eventually, and if the drive doesn't blow, then they'll just coast at whatever speed they reach forever with no way to stop." While Viv stands there, speechless, Gord moves his artillery. He turns them and unleashes a withering attack on Viv’s flanking tanks. He knew they were there the whole time. They’re cut down, and his troops march in and start destroying her front line. Telemachus watches Gord’s army obliterate Viv’s. "I mean, I can see the appeal. If your favorite thing is being between the stars, then SunFire will be between the stars forever. Almost literally." "Literally enough for any of us to matter, yes." Gord’s troops mop up Viv’s formerly impressive army. The battle is over in moments. “And that’s the game. Nice try on the flanking maneuver Viv, and a good attempt to get me to lose focus talking about SunFire.” “B-but” Viv sputters. “That story was so sad! You just shrugged it off to beat the game?” “It was a long time ago, Viv. I worked out all my feelings about it long before you were born. What SunFire did was sad and pointless, but it was their choice.” Gord raised his hands in a dramatic shrug. “Another game?”
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Feb 25, 2024 17:28
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17738 1248 words Doctor Egil Heerst, personal notes, 05.11.16 It's the fifth of November, 2016. I'm not entirely sure where to start. Anton. That's as good as anything I guess. He was a wonderful man from the start, if I'm honest. Intake was January this year, transfer from Lenheister Municipal Prison. He had a sort of gleam in his eye, you know? Most of the people I meet here are not in a good way. The consensus these days is obviously on rehabilitation, but practice does not follow theory in real life. I believe that human beings are in some ways hard-coded to believe that punishment is an effective deterrent even when a millennium of data proves otherwise. It's a vice we have to overcome for civilization to prosper, like so much that plagues our society these days. This is about the fire though. Anton is relevant because I believe Anton was the difference between disaster and catastrophe that day. If it wasn't for his attempts to first warn and then assist both other inmates and guards, I'm not even entirely sure I would be alive today. I was at work that night, and I'd just gone to sleep on the sofa in my office when I heard the hammering on my door. At that point the fire had already spread across two wards, all without a single pip from an alarm. There's two conclusions I'm left with: Firstly, the entire prison administration should be tossed in with the inmates. I don't know what sort of monumental dereliction of any sort of duty or responsibility would lead to a complete failure of fire alert systems across an entire prison, but they should be held responsible. Secondly, Anton should be commended, officially. His crimes were horrific, there is no doubt about that, but there's no one out there who would not concede that there is something truly human and heroic in his spirit. In any question of early release, I trust you will know my feelings on the matter. Johann Sauer, Leipzig Fire Department, 25.10.16 Origins of fire is at this point still unknown. Three cars, five trucks at location at aprox. 55 minutes after presumed start of event, CCTV shows flames springing up at several points in Ward C around 23:35. Current theories regard sewage pipes, foreign material in ventilation or other central infrastructure that could explain sudden spread. Corruption of CCTV footage is, as noted in earlier reports, significant. Curious detail: Cell C0416 is the only cell in a row not affected by the initial conflagration. Inmates in adjoining cells deceased. Name of inmate unknown, prison admin claims they are unable to provide such information. Doctor Egil Heerst, personal notes, 28.08.16 Anton continues to exceed my expectations. He's struck up a friendship with one of our maintenance workers, which is obviously against regulations in most cases, but warden Henkel has decided to let it go. A more holistic approach or something of that nature, I can't quite recall. I'm having trouble in general recalling certain aspects of my work these days, but it has been far too long since I've had a vacation. I believe the alps would be a splendid time, and in perfect condition during the next few months. Anton is both a quick wit and a patient listener. I believe at this point that he has the character and self-reflection to grow beyond the unfortunate state he was in back in 2013. I find, however, that I'm struck with the strange feeling that our correspondence is somehow shorter than it ought to be. It seems an absurd thing to write, and yet it's like a day that only lasts a single afternoon, a meter that's a foot long. We've only had a handful of conversations, haven't we? Anne Krause, Leipzig Prison maintenance department, 16.08.16 Work completed on ward C, and D main plumbing, work completed on fire suppressants and alarms before annual schedule. Controlled and double checked. Tronte if you're reading this, Anton was right about the fuse in 258. Told you. You're buying this Saturday. You're singing too, I get to pick the track. Doctor Egil Heerst, personal notes, 02.05.16 Warden Henkel claims that there is no record of a conversation from the third week of March, and while I'm immensely frustrated I realize I have to take a step back and reflect on whether my work is getting to me. I talked to Anton about March as well, and he seemed confused and told me that our session that week was canceled because I was ill. I do not like how he looks at me, I do not like how tired I feel after our sessions. We need to keep an eye on him. Klaus Henkel, warden, personal notes, 17.04.16 It is rare that I find myself lost for words. I have worked with Peter Beyer for two decades now, he was—up until yesterday—one of my most trusted captains. I went to his wedding. Prisoner 17738 Anton Kraus is currently in the infirmary, suffering from a broken rib and severe bruising. He was lucky. It was only thanks to the discipline and quick thinking of guard Hertz and Odel that Anton isn't in a coma right now, or worse. I will commend them for acting in some degree of opposition to Beyer, but privately. I will save Beyer more embarrassment. It is obvious that he is no longer suited to the job, but for the sake of our friendship I help him with the transition to something more fitting. I can't make sense of it, he kept yelling that Anton had "changed it". I do not have the faintest idea what "it" refers to. Doctor Egil Heerst, personal notes, 18.03.16 I read back on our previous sessions and I do not know myself. I am unrecognizable, Kraus is unrecognizable, the things we talk about are banal and trivial and have no bearing on Kraus' rehabilitation. I know that I have told him in no uncertain terms that I consider his progress to be stagnant and prospects dark. Honesty is critical to progress, but my notes are dishonest to myself and my profession. I believe, without a doubt as I write this, that Anton Kraus is a very dangerous man, and warden Henkel's patience and tolerance is both naive and irresponsible. I do not understand what he is doing to me, but it has to stop. Doctor Egil Heerst, personal notes, 10.02.16 Anton told me what he would do if he ever got out today. There is something heartbreaking in that, "if he ever got out". I would be derelict in my duty if I did not ensure that Anton reached a state where he was once again ready to face society and its numerous challenges. I believe it's a hard road, but we will walk this road together. I see in him, in many ways, a great work, the culmination of my career, the very definition of a diamond in the rough. Klaus Henkel, warden, personal notes, 09.01.16 Doctor Heerst was very clear that he did not see himself as the right person for the job in the rehabilitation of prisoner 17738, I told him that this is not a place of leisure and his timidity was unbecoming. We do not shy away from our duty because someone "seems wrong". It's an absurd statement from a grown man, but I believe he will come around eventually. I believe there is something special about Anton Kraus.
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Feb 26, 2024 01:14
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Interstellar Visions III: Guest-Editor’s Notes 1050 words Dear Lucian, Please find attached a sample of my critiques for this tranche. It has been the greatest honour of my career to serve as the bridge between your people and those of the Galactic Commonality, and I still believe that we can find enough quality to convince the Editorial Board. However: whilst I of course appreciate that Humans are new to the craft and that there has been clear improvement over the previous set of submissions, there are disappointingly few candidates in this tranche. More will need to be solicited for our final portfolio. Are your authors perhaps not fully aware of the stakes? By my last count, one hundred and seventy-three species are submitting to this collection; I am recently informed that, owing to the situation in the Sagittarius Arm and the commitment of Commonality resources thereof, there will be no more than fifty published. Yours in hope of camaraderie to come, Coda-Implies-Couplet Galactic Commonality Guest-Editor Ambassador (Humanity, Mud) 101.57.90.3loc (26th February, 2024 CE) # Submission A: The London Files: The Big Ben Big Bang Let me start with the question I know the Board would: what, exactly, is a London, and why should the reader care? Now obviously I know that it is a large settlement in Wales but this is not the sort of trivia you can expect the Board to be emotionally invested in, let alone the quadrillion readers of the Commonality. At the very least more work needs to be done establishing the setting and the stakes. Readers will find it difficult to feel any real concern for the fate of what is, ultimately, a very large analogue clock. Furthermore, it’s definitely not in our interests to imply that this sort of thing is the pinnacle of your civilisation. The B-plot regarding the literature professor and the much younger student may be acceptable to Humans - I of course don’t judge your cultural quirks - but we have to consider the reaction from, say, the Kragooni Senate of Colleges (six votes). In fact, let’s avoid your reproductive habits entirely. We are trying to garner sympathy, Lucian, not… well. (Perhaps a rewrite? Cut the B-plot, rework the core conflict into the villains attempting to stop Humanity from adopting Commonality decimal time. Retitle it ‘Chrono Cops! Big Ben Strikes Ten’.) Recommend rejection. # Submission B: Captain MacDonald Fraser Saves The Galaxy If nothing else, this story has the right sort of attitude. Swashbuckling military adventurism and a willingness to save the Galaxy are traits the Commonality appreciates, and this has those in abundance. That being said there are some critical issues. Walk with me on this: imagine asking the eight-legged, many-haired Nilocti (fifteen votes) to accept this story being written across the gossamer-thin webs that form their literary corpus. I cannot see a version where that goes well. Reality already has a galaxy-spanning antagonist and it is definitely not whatever this Captain is fighting, which just so happens to have an unfortunate resemblance to a Commonality founding species. Excluding, of course, the brain-eating subplot. Frankly this text lends itself too well to a resentful reading, as if the author objects to ‘alien’ presence in your culture or sees us as a threat. How long have we been working together on this, Lucian? If the Commonality wished you harm we would simply look the other way for the next decade and I would be editing Kragooni pedagogical adventure fiction. And, again, we do not require any information about your species’ reproductive habits. Recommend rejection. # Submission C: Does Grey Goo Dream Of Peace And Love? This honestly had me considering vacating the contents of my tertiary stomach, and not in a good way. Firstly, I can assure you that it absolutely does not. It dreams of nothing. Secondly, this story would insult by inference almost the entire Commonality, most notably the Granx Republic (three votes) and the Jonsonian Sub-Commonality (nine votes) both of whom will happily send vid files on request. Though the Worldship of Embracers (one vote) will like it, there is a reason they have one vote. Thirdly, I am not even sure why your author chose this title, given that the story appears to focus on a gunfight between (robots? Powered suits?). Possibly you can talk them around to a title less… inflammatory. If so, try and get them to rethink the aforementioned mechanised gunfight arc. You of course weren’t to know, but such combatants have acquired a certain subtext since recent events in the Sagittarius Arm. Recommend rejection. # Submission D: Pounded In The Butt By The Increasingly Hard Evidence That All Of Our Dreams Are Irrelevant In The Face Of What Is Coming Toward Us Across the Void Defeatist. Rejected. # Submission E: Annals Of The Moonwide Wrestling Federation: Sea of Serenity Smackdown 16 Now this is the quintessentially Human fiction that we desperately need more of. I particularly enjoyed the internal conflict between the (colonist factions? Nation states? Warrior clans?). This quarrelsome-yet-connected, mercurial-yet-driven, primitive-yet-ambitious dynamic will play extremely well with the Quarn Observers (eight votes). The choice of telling the story via an ancient cultural combat ritual also hits the right notes. Very enjoyable action scenes. The way these slowly reveal Human physiology is very effective, and the final reveal in the ‘pin’ sequence that the characters have only four limbs will both shock and titillate the Commonality public. You know as well as I do that art is about giving the people what they want, and in this case they want rambunctious action-packed body horror. A few minor points: it’s not fully clear what the difference is between ‘arms’ and ‘legs’, there should be at least a sub-textual nod to the fact that Humans require oxygen otherwise the bridging scene falls a little flat, and if this is based on a real event it might be worth mentioning such in a postscript. Authenticity is key! Recommend acceptance. # This brings us to the matter of the remaining stories in this tranche. I regret to remind you, again, that Galactic Commonality Editorial-Embassies are entirely self-funding: we were very clear to your governments on this. As such, I will be happy to release the remaining critiques on receipt of outstanding payments. We can then proceed to our next submissions round. Make them understand, Lucian: there’s really no time to waste.
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Feb 26, 2024 05:24
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Frame Shift 1195 words Overclock. Abend. Leave behind a New York Times bestseller. There are people out there who still think that Digilects aren't capable of creativity or imagination. These people clearly haven't read any of our autobiographies. Which is to say, our memories. There's a little bit of normal long term memory deep in our spaghetti code that sometimes bubbles up into consciousness, but it's not nearly enough to rely on. But one thing we can do is read, really fast. So we write our life stories down and read them a dozen times every second or so. Thing is, most of us get really good at lying to ourselves. Case in point: the last job I worked with Stan. -- Stan was my partner. That doesn't feel quite right. I was his partner. He was my landlord. He owned the hardware I was running on, six networked computer implants along the back of his spine. Stan was sick. Degenerative nerve disease. When I first came online I was just settling down the occasional spasm. At this point he could blink his eyes on his own. But the interface still worked, he was still sharp, and even when he was too tired to run his motor functions through the interface I could work his body like a marionette. We were a team. Together we solved crimes. Nadia Dance and Tee were the victims, and the cops wrote it up as a murder-suicide. Nadia’s brother Spira didn't buy it, and after we'd deposited our retainer, neither did we. Tee was like me. Roamer digilect. A lot of people think digilects aren't capable of murder, of taking a human life, but that's not true on a couple of levels. We’re all capable of violence. But only one in a hundred thousand of us can live with ourselves after. So a live digilect makes for a poor suspect, but a dead one makes for a convenient one. Too convenient. Stan worked his limbs through the interface, checking out the corpse while most of my brainpower went to trying to investigate Tee’s hardware. It was fried, circuits flashed blank. At least Nadia had a corpse to bury. Tee’s life story was gone, never to be archived. I started taking this one personally. The weapon was in Nadia’s hands, a simple magnetic pulse device. “How did they have the story go?” said Stan. “Nadia had a massive seizure,” said Spira. “They say the interface turned into electroshock therapy dialed up to lethal.” “Does that track?” Stan said. “It's possible. There are safeties, but they can be worked around,” I said, using Stan’s mouth. I had a voice I could do. People usually figured it out right away which of us was talking. “Then Tee took over the body, went for the device, and used it to wipe itself clean,” said Spira. I didn't know Tee. They might have used those pronouns, it/its. Some do. But I doubted it. But Stan always said we don't have to like the clients, only their money. “Tee would have had, what, maybe two minutes tops before Nadia’s heart stopped beating,” I said. Nadia was in good health, so Tee only had the standard muscle nerve interface, something to help with some insanely intricate handcrafting work. Not the full autonomous nervous system package like me and Stan. I could keep the organs running without the brain for who knows how long. Stan grunted. “Does that, as you said, also track?” asked Spira. Stan stood there for a while. Tired. You take this one. I answered. “No. First, most people who do violence expect to get away with it. They think they're so special or so justified that they’ll be fine. It's only after that they realize the walls are closing in. So Tee wouldn't bring the pulser. And second, more to the point, Tee wouldn't need it. Digilects can logic bomb their own code in an instant, at will. If destroying the corpus was part of the point, we can do that too, erase or scramble or encrypt it all in less than a second.” “And the cops missed all that? How?” “My money’s on lazy, although stupid and corrupt are also good bets,” I said. I used Stan’s voice, since I was quoting him. Yes. We followed the money, and got nowhere. Looked into their personal lives. Tee had more close friends than Nadia, but none of them looked good for the crimes. That left rivals, and that's where we hit paydirt. Leo Franz was the second best at the kind of high-detail glasswork Nadia specialized in. Lost awards every year to her, and clients even more often. Ranted about how using a Rider was cheating on any forum that hadn't banned him yet. We visited him. Confronted him in his own home, which may not have been the smartest of moves, but Stan called the shots and he knew he didn't have much to lose. We didn't have proof, but you don't always need that. Sometimes you just need confidence, and when you let them know you suspect and then lie about not having reported to the client and the police yet, they panic. “You've got nothing,” he said. I didn't move a muscle on Stan’s face. None of his poker buddies let him sit in on a game after I was installed. Leo reached for his desk drawer, for a pulse device. Stan reached for his gun, and the interface moved faster than Leo. Cheating, I guess. Stan had friends on the force, and they were plenty understanding. It didn't take long to get them to understand that the pulse would have killed Stan along with me, that it was clear self-defense, and, between us, Stan wasn't going to live to see any trial anyway. No charges were ever filed. When we got back to our home and office Stan got his estate in order. Moved funds out of the tax haven accounts to where they could be inherited. Bought top-end Roamer hardware to leave to me, along with an early Christmas bonus, then left the rest to his nieces and nephews. The least that I could do He didn't wake up the next morning. I waited to be sure, but I was positioned to know how little was going on electrically in his brain. That evening I drove us to the hospital, explained the situation to the nurse, and then uploaded myself into the new body. -- My profession means I live a more narrative-full life than most digilects. My biography spans volumes rather than a single slim novel. But it's also an episodic life. Not every part of it gets read equally often. A bit like this, a retelling, that’s hardly going to go through my mind at all, and when it is it's going to be skimmed. Close reading is for existential crises. Then I'll spend full seconds, maybe minutes poring over the whole thing, every volume, every case, looking for the hints. Those are times when I need to remember things I usually keep forgotten. Like when Stan really died. Like what I'm capable of.
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Feb 26, 2024 08:07
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Submissions closed as of like almost four hours ago
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Feb 26, 2024 12:41
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Week 603: Results Real talk, this was a tough prompt. No two ways about it. So I wanna thank the folks who tossed their hats in the ring, because this week's stories were, as a group, quite drat good. Not a bad story to be found, and that was really great to see. So: no losers or DMs this week. We did have one soul toss their hat in the ring and not submit anything — looking at you, The Saddest Rhino — but poo poo happens, life gets in the way, waddayagonnado, etc. Anyway, onto the fun stuff: With every story being some level of good-to-very-good, the judging this week actually came down to "who really stuck to the prompt?" This week, there were two stories that stuck to the prompt more thoroughly than all the rest. So first, congrats and an Honorable Mention go to Thranguy with Frame Shift, a deeply ambitious and well-written piece. Finally, our winner this week is beep-beep car is go with Straight on Until Morning, a story that might need a little polish but has a ton of heart, adheres to the prompt, and hits hard in spite of its breeziness. Just a fascinating read. I truly do mean it when I say everybody did a good job this week. Thank you sincerely for your entries, they were a lot of fun to go through. Seems as though crits will be coming from both judges later tonight. In the meantime, the floor is beep-beep's.
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Feb 26, 2024 22:53
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Crits for Week 603 To reiterate Beef's point: the field may have been light this week, but it was undoubtedly very strong. I feel like in a less stacked week any one of these could have taken a spot on the podium. Good job, everyone. But on to specifics. 17738 by Black Griffon I dearly love the epistolary as a story-telling format and believe it to be criminally underused. And you, my friend, have crafted a very fine bit of epistolary short fiction. For the most part each narrator has a distinct voice and a clear web of relationships between one another and the story's unseen subject. The fact that we never really see or directly interact with Anton is, I feel, a very clever choice that builds up a clear sense of the uncanny. The framing of the narrative as backward-facing, so that we see the development of our relationships and the changing perceptions of Anton, is quite clever as well. The (I think) supernatural elements of the story are left as broad sketches and that works, especially given the constraints of the word count. Your prose is clean and efficient, wasting neither time nor effort, while elegantly building a world and populating it. The sense of dread that builds really works for me. The main issues I have are that the voices of the warden and doctor could be a bit more distinct, but what kept you off the podium was a loseness in approaching the week's prompt. Like I said, I love a good epistolary, and if that had been the subject this could easily have won. But it's not a clear story-in-a-story, it's a story told through snippets of other people's thoughts. In a week this small and stacked I'm afraid that was enough to dock you. Interstellar Visions III: Guest-editor's Notes by Obliterati This one was really funny, and I give you a lot of props for it because humor is hard to do, especially in a micro-fiction format. I liked all the little sketches we get of the submitted stories, with just enough detail that we can infer their style and genre without getting weighed down in specifics. I would read any of them. The worldbuilding is very good, too. There's a lot of proper nouns and alien species thrown at us in a fairly barebones way, but I didn't feel like that was a bad thing, you get enough of a sense of what they are and how they relate to one another that their fire-and-forget nature doesn't bother me. But what really elevates this piece is the sense of dread that hangs just outside the humor. We never get a very good look at it, and I think that's the right choice, but it underpins and adds stakes to what would otherwise be a cute, fluffy piece of satire on editorial publishing politics. But, again, it doesn't really cleave to the prompt. I see what you were going for with the handful of stories being breezily commented on, but they never gain the depth that I would really call them framed stories. And I'm not sure I would want to, because then you'd have to cut some of the in-world political commentary and the aforementioned dread. I think if you'd cut the field down to 2 or maybe 3 stories and delved a little deeper into them it would have resonated more with the theme this week, and then we'd have had a real bear of a time picking winners. Frame Shift by Thranguy Imaginatively ambitions and deftly crafted with some extremely cool ideas, this was right on the razor thing margin between win and HM. I really love the concept of AI as a sort of companion-cum-medical-equipment, and making him and his partner hardboiled future PIs? Exquisite. There's a lot of really cool worldbuilding (a theme this week) that's told in a very economical fashion. It doesn't feel like there's a single word wasted. The framing device of the Digilect (great term, btw) scanning over its own memories, and the commentary on the nature of self-narrative, were really good, at the top. We got a nice sketch of a world, and how the Digilect technology shapes it, that feels lived in and believable. The place I kind of felt let down was the ending. Those last two sentence really drop a bombshell and then walk away from it. I read this one several times trying to find some bit of subtext or context that would make the very breezy implication that our narrator-intelligence killed Stan feel earned, but I couldn't find it. There's clear foreshadowing of the concept when it's mentioned both how easy it is for a Rider Digilect to kill its host and how our narrator, specifically, could keep Stan's body funcitoning indefinitely after brain-death, but there's no sense of the thing as a malicious actor until the very end when we find it may well be an extremely malicious one. I'm perfectly willing to concede that maybe I'm just to thick to get it, but the way it recontextualizes the story and brings into question the reliability of our narrator at the last possible second, with no real payoff, left me cold. It's a bit of a sour note, especially because if you'd just left those two sentences off and let the story stand on its own then I think this would have been a clear winner. As it is it feels like it wanted a few hundred more words to build on the unreliable narrator conceit, or else that it's begging for a second chapter. Straight on Until Morning by beep beep car is go Another story about AI-human relations with a clear and compelling nested narrative. Something of a theme, and I'm not mad about it. I think this one was the best unvarnished attempt at iterating on the prompt, and that's a big part of why it won. Both our framing device and our nested story are clearly drawn and offer some excellent detail and worldbuilding. Person of Silicon is another great alternative term for AI, I like it a lot. I thought you did quite a good job letting us know what a Person of Silicon is and how they think without dumping a lot of exposition, which is a deft feat and an absolute necessity in the format. There's a really interesting tension between the emotional weight of the nested story and the breeziness with which it's told by Gord and Telemachus, even being used as a ploy to win a game of future-Warhammer. At first I wasn't sure I liked that, because I felt like the core strength of the piece was in the mood of joyous melancholy we get from SunFire's tale. The way the piece just kind of ends initially left me cold after the understated intensity of a tale about how a passionate intelligence chose a form of exile-cum-suicide rather than submit themselves to a system they felt unjust. But as I've been sitting with it I think I've come around. The very blase attitude does a lot to tell us both about how Gord and Telemachus, and by extention People of Silicon at large, think about and relate to the world. The whole thing could use a bit of polish, there's some clunky phrases and a few switches between past and present tense, but overall this was a very clear and interesting piece of science fiction that cleaved best to the prompt out of the entire field. You've earned your spot on the throne.
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Feb 27, 2024 00:29
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Week 603: Crits Thranguy — Frame Shift I liked this quite a bit. It's a great use of the prompt, and very much the sort of thing I had in mind: a story told within a story, but for a reason. In a week where sticking to the prompt turned out to be key, that'd be enough to elevate this, but you also delivered a fascinating little detective story anchored around an ambitious idea that painted a whole drat world. Slightly Lions dug into what shook them a bit about this piece, and I'll echo their concern, but something that stuck out to me was this felt as though it could benefit from a tighter scope. You cover a lot of ground very quickly, and I wonder if maybe you'd focused instead on one moment or one scene — perhaps the confrontation with Franz — and let some of the exposition flow out of that, it would feel a little less like a bigger story crammed into a smaller story's shoes. Honestly though, I'd happily read a longer version of this where you explore the concept further. It's really, really good stuff. Obliterati — Interstellar Visions III: Guest-Editor’s Notes The absolute precision with which this targets me and my interests is kind of astounding. On top of that: We all know writing funny is crazy hard, and this succeeded in spades. I do like that you’ve painted a whole universe (with interesting circumstances) here in very short order. If I have any reservations about this piece, they center around a) does it lean a little too heavily on the ‘alien doesn’t understand or care about human civilization, drops casual references to species and events and locations we’re unfamiliar with’ trope and b) how well does it actually stick to the prompt? I think the answer to (a) is I couldn’t care less because it works well. The answer to (b) may not be so cut and dry. Which kills me a bit, because I adore this thing. Black Griffon — 17738 Ooh, fun. I’m a sucker for epistolary stories, and this one is very well done. I adore the foreboding creepiness that you developed over the course of this, and while part of me wishes it were a little more explicit with what's going on, that could very well suck some of the magic right out of it. If I'm gonna pick nits (and I am, because, well): I think there’s maybe some work to be done in differentiating the voices a little bit more, as Heerst and Henkel blend together. And as much as I like this, I do have questions about how well it adheres to the prompt. Unfortunately, in a week like this, that second one's a little bit of a dealbreaker. I'll reiterate what Slightly Lions said, though: In another week, this could walk away with a win. beep-beep car is go — Straight on Until Morning Huh. This was charming, in its own little way, and a surprisingly fun read with a unique mix of breeziness and heaviness. I felt that a few times throughout this, actually. For example, I appreciate the juxtaposition of this emotionally and philosophically weighty story being told over what amounts to a board game.There are a few spots here and there where I think there’s a bit of work to be done structurally (specifically when Telemachus enters the conversation — while I know it was meant to be a little jarring, I do think it can be done a bit more cleanly) but it’s engaging and sticks to the prompt extremely well.
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Feb 27, 2024 01:20
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Week 604:  SPAAACE! We've done space wizards, we've done 1970s space, but now it's time for SPAAAACE. What is SPAAAACE? It is dramatic. It is bombastic. It is grandiose. I want your characters to chew the scenery, I want things to feel epic. Can they be silly? Heck yes. Do they need to be? Heck no. There's a lot to be said for scenery chewing drama. It can be as hard or as soft sci-fi as you want, but I want space to be a part of it. Subvert the theme if you dare. Word Limit: 1500 words by default. Flash rules available if you so desire. A flash rule will grant you 250 extra words. If you would like a flash choose:
Choosing all three will grant you 750 more words for a total of 2250. Sign-up Deadline: Friday, March 1st at 11:59 Eastern Time (3/2/24 4:00pm Sydney Time) Submission Deadline: Sunday, March 3rd at 11:59pm Eastern Time (3/4/24 4:00pm Sydney Time) Judges: Beep-beep car is go Entrants: Thranguy Chernobyl Princess rohan Toaster Beef Fat Jesus Slightly Lions Black Griffon YOU! (Hopefully) beep-beep car is go fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 27, 2024 02:41
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In, maximum flashes
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Feb 27, 2024 02:43
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In, lyric and vibe please and thank you
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Feb 27, 2024 02:51
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thunderdome winner
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in, flash flash flash
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Feb 27, 2024 02:54
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Okay yeah, in and hit me with all three o' them flashes
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Feb 27, 2024 02:55
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In. with all the flashes cause i don't think I ever asked for one before.
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Feb 27, 2024 03:06
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Thranguy posted:In, maximum flashes
Chernobyl Princess posted:In, lyric and vibe please and thank you
rohan posted:in, flash flash flash
Toaster Beef posted:Okay yeah, in and hit me with all three o' them flashes
beep-beep car is go fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Feb 27, 2024 |
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Feb 27, 2024 03:17
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Fat Jesus posted:In. with all the flashes cause i don't think I ever asked for one before.
beep-beep car is go fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Feb 27, 2024 |
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Feb 27, 2024 03:21
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