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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Unless I'm blind I don't actually see a wordcount limit anywhere If you can write the Great Albanian Novel in five days, I salute you. Kaishai just edited it in, 1300 words
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May 8, 2013 17:50
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Voliun posted:Well I am officially free from exams and I'm having a hard time picking. You will be writing for the glorious Mediterranean republic of Malta. I lived in that country for a while. No pressure. From the annals of the Great Franklin: Tomorrow, every fault is to be amended; but that tomorrow never comes.
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May 8, 2013 17:54
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Are we absolutely sure no older entries? Because the infamous Moldova 2010 is practically screaming "Join, or die." After a brief conference, we encourage everyone to prospect 2013 for rich veins of crazy. However, if you insist, you may use an old gem. However: (1) You'll have to go searching for them yourself. (2) You will be flash-ruled at least once. Have fun!
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May 8, 2013 20:03
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:EDIT: Oh gently caress yes. In with Hard Rock Hallelujah (Finland 2006) and Join, or die.  For Your Insolence: A Flash Rule However, because you chose Lordi, and Lordi is awesome and wears cool hats, you get a choice. You may pick either of these: Choose two Bible verses and post them above your story. You must incorporate the themes, characters and messages of these verses into your story. Note, however, that you need not directly quote them in the story itself. OR Write your entire story in Biblical verse, using the style of the King James Version. Good luck!
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May 8, 2013 20:22
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CancerCakes posted:Thanks for the crits from last week - I hope to not write and edit in one sitting at 2am again, it's not pleasant. Seeing as how you chose the Martello-est video in the pack, I'm going to Flash Rule you:You must write your piece in the style and spirit of Martello. Interpret this however you like.
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May 9, 2013 17:25
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magnificent7 posted:crickets all up in this bitch. Dude, it's not even the end of Monday for me, and I'm in loving Europe. Step off. Judges have conferred and results will likely be in before Tuesday tickles Toronto.
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May 13, 2013 22:31
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Martello posted:This Genejack Well, never thought I'd see the day when one of the Original Three tried to sneak in some videogame fanfiction.
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May 21, 2013 09:11
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Martello posted:I was hardly sneaking it. Will we next create false gods to rule over us? How proud we have become. And how blind.
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May 21, 2013 12:21
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I don't have time to enter this week, but I want to poo poo out some fiction anyway. So... Kaishai, you defeated me during the Week of the Long Wait. I demand a rematch. Thunderbrawl, thy name invoked. Chairchucker has pre-agreed to judge. Submission deadline one week post-prompt.
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May 22, 2013 13:28
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Thunderbrawlin' with Kaishai, as judged by the Right Honourable Chairchucker Mortimer & The Drainpipe Dilemma (1,325 words) Mortimer the Plumbing Fairy finished his masterwork and flipped the fountain on, drenching manicured hedgerows, prancing fae-folk and his own hairy beer-gut alike. Spouts he’d tuned for gentle spirals instead spewed frothy geysers, painting a dreadful rainbow across the summer sky. A stray stream lanced towards Lord Tuffy, who dozed beside his prized catnip bush. One yellow eye popped open just before the gusher struck his face. Mort dove for the pipes and wrenched them closed, sweating. This can’t be happening! The fountain should’ve been a raindrop waltz colorfully caressing the garden, not a nightmarish deluge. He bit his nails; maybe no one had seen the mistake. They wouldn’t judge him. He could still win them over, with a few adjustments. The ground yanked away from him and Mort swung in midair, hanging by his collar beneath a waterlogged feline jaw. He sagged. “Sorry, Lord Tuffy.” The cat carried Mort away from the fountain, soggy paws squelching with each step. “I say, you’ve done it this time.” “I thought the garden needed something pretty.” “Truly, you’re a fairy of many talents. Look, it was quite a success.” The cat swung his muzzle towards a flower bed. Uprooted geraniums splayed across pavement and the catnip bush lay upended, roots washed clean. “No, Mort, I’m afraid I’ll have the real fairies clean up your mess.” The cat stopped over a concrete tunnel leading downwards into darkness. Muddy runoff from Mort’s watery mishap trickled down the storm drain and Tuffy hung Mort over the abyss. “Hey, I can’t fly, you know that!” Mort grabbed onto wet fur and waggled his droopy wings. Blasted things hadn’t worked right in years. “Back where you belong. Ta ta.” Mort fell. # Deep beneath the garden, Mort trudged blindly to a junction and touched a pipe. Too cold, too much flow. He shoved wrench onto valve and twisted. Something fluttered and splashed nearby. Odd. A leak? He groped towards the noise. It wouldn’t do having a busted pipe down here. The others may not see it, but the smooth flow of fresh water would one day earn him his ticket to return topside, he just knew it. Fur mashed into his face and a screech echoed through the sewer. “Plumber fairy?” “Who’s asking?” Mort snatched a flashlight from his toolbelt. A dark-eyed bat shifted from foot to foot, head cocked to one side. “The heck are you doing down here?” “I’m Skag. A plumber fairy got tossed down here the other day. That you?” “You see any others?” Mort tucked away his wrench. “What do you want? I’m busy.” “I got a job for you. Something to get back at them that’s wronged you. Get ‘em real good. What d’you say?” Mort snorted. “I’m pretty busy trying to keep stuff flowing for the fairies topside. So if you’ll excuse me.” “Really? Even after they tossed you down in the muck?” “I work down here. It’s no big deal.” Mort plodded back towards the pipe junction. “They appreciate what I do.” “Do they really? They ever say thanks? Good job? Well done?” Mort stopped. “Aw, Morty.” Skag sidled up, laid a hand on Mort’s shoulder. “Tell you what. You thirsty? There’s a whole crew who’d love to meet you.” “Would they?” “Sure. What d’you say we get a cold one? I’ll introduce you. You’ll be the talk of the tavern. Cross my heart.” Mort smiled. “Well, I could go for one drink.” “Attaboy. We can talk business later.” # Mort hoisted himself up to the lip of the storm drain and peered over. Garden fairies lazed on leaves, sipping dewdrops, and Tuffy lay on his back beneath a tree, his proud thick fur heat-frizzed. No one watched the grate, and, of course, why would they? None of them cared about the hard work he did down there. He pulled himself topside, plucked a key from his toolbelt, jammed it into a keyhole and twisted. Rusty gears howled as thick metal plates sealed the storm drain. Mort raced to a hedge and dove in. A cicada ceased buzzing and stared at the droop-winged fairy cowering in the dirt, but nothing else happened. By the earth, Skag was right, they really didn’t care! Jaw clenched, Mort marched to the fountain and wrenched valves open. Days of careful adjustment paid off; beautiful streams of fresh cold water sprang into the air, splattering back into the basin, just where they belonged. Mort ran for higher ground and clambered atop a tall stone bench. The fairies drifted from their mossy hillocks and leaf beds to the lip of the giant stone fountain. After a moment’s staring, they danced in the cooling mist. Even Tuffy padded over and sat in the cool spray wafting from the jets. Across the garden, Skag hung upside-down from a shaded branch with his wings folded over his head. Presently, he lifted a claw and shot Mort a thumbs-up. As the sun dipped to the horizon, the frolicking fairy folk continued to play in the refreshing spray as water lapped the basin’s lip. Mort smirked. The flood would begin soon, better get going. The branches of Skag’s tree were empty. Indeed, no furry bundles lurked in any of the garden’s darker corners. “So, Mort, was it you who did this?” Tuffy loomed over Mort, whiskers twitching. “Did what? I didn’t do nothing. Just coming up for air.” Dark wings drew Mort’s eye skywards. Skag was airborne, circling over the garden. “Nonsense, who else knows how to fix that thing?” The cat patted Mort’s head with a paw. “Thanks, I guess.” Mort waved to Skag. Down here, you moron, come pick me up. That was the deal! A trickle of water crested the stone basin and slopped over the side. One last lazy loop and Skag flitted away, vanishing beyond the trees. Mort ground his teeth. Never trust a goddamned bat. “Tuffy, quick, get everyone away from the fountain.” “What’s this? It’s a delightful refreshment. You can’t expect us to forego—“ Thunder split the sky and dark sudden clouds poured down bucketfuls of rain. Denied drainage, water inundated the garden. Fairies launched into the air, only to be knocked back into the rising flood by downpour’s sheer force. Peals of laughter twisted into screams for help. “Good heavens. Mort, do something!” Mort pointed. “We have to get to the storm drain. Swim me over there.” “Swim?” Tuffy shuddered, droplets flying from his fur. “In the water?” Shedding his toolbelt, Mort dove into the churning floodwaters, a key clenched between his teeth. Currents pulled him under, shoved dirt and bark up his nose, and hurled him against bush and stone, but he fought on. When he made it to the drain the water was thrice his height and still rising. He sucked in air and dove. He shoved key into lock, strained against it. His breath soured in his chest and he spewed bubbles, screaming at the damned machine to budge. The lock clicked, the grate unsealed. Floodwater flew down into the abyss and Mort hugged the keyshaft. His breath burst from his chest and he swallowed a mouthful of muddy water. One by one, fingers peeled away from the key. A fat paw pressed him to the ground, the vicious current still tearing at him. Vision darkening, he thrashed and slurped in more muck. The last of the water drained away. Mort coughed up mud and drank storm-freshened air. “Dear me, you almost got away from us there.” Tuffy stared down at Mort. “How on earth did this happen?” Mort wiped leaf-bits from his lips and spluttered. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I’m sorry.” He coughed again. “But everyone’s okay, right? They saw how beautiful it was.” Tuffy sighed and shook his dripping head. “Mort, whatever will we do with you?” Mortimer P. Fairy is currently serving a fifteen year sentence in a maximum-security federal penitentiary.
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May 29, 2013 21:10
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Ceighk posted:So do we just post it whenever we're done? You post whenever you think what you've written is ready for public viewing, or the deadline arrives, whichever comes first. If you finish early, though, you should consider letting your piece sit for a day or two. Re-read it with fresher eyes and fix the problems you'll inevitably discover. Read it dispassionately, looking for problems with pacing, tone and characterization that may not be apparent when your head is still full of all the piece's details. The Curse of Knowledge is one of your opponents. Posting before the sign-up deadline is unusual. Generally, it means you didn't take enough time to polish your stuff.
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May 30, 2013 14:42
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Muffin has accepted Super Funtime Thunderbrawl, No Joke - SurreptitiousMuffin v. The Saddest Rhino Word count: 1,200 words, or less, natch. Deadline: 11:59 PM GMT+0 Sunday. For this brawl, you will be writing a Just So Story in the spirit of Rudyard Kipling. That is, you will be writing the fictionalized, romanticized origin story of some phenomenon or thing. There are two constraints: (1) Your story must hinge on an important part of the cultural or political heritage of your respective nations. You may select either your nation of origin, or your nation of current residence. (2) Your story must include a character, significant prop or event based on your SA Forums name.
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May 30, 2013 17:34
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The Saddest Rhino posted:NOTE: Muffin just mentioned on IRC he's facing some real life difficulties and I'm ok with the brawl being longer or not happening. Either way, I'm happy for Beef (and/or anyone else interested) to crit this. I've been out of the writing game for way too long. If you're cool with an extension, I'm cool with an extension. Also, you illustrated. 
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Jun 2, 2013 12:00
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gently caress it, I'm in. Going to try to poo poo something out even if I have to write it on beer coasters.
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Jun 5, 2013 20:26
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Resultspost! Super Funtime Thunderbrawl, No Joke - SurreptitiousMuffin v. The Saddest Rhino Entries: The Saddest Rhino - How Beloved Baby Rhino Fell into Despair; or, Sadness is a Blessing SurreptitiousMuffin - How the fantail lost nothing important, and learnt no lessons TL;DR: The Saddest Rhino by a whisker. Be sad no more, little Rhino. You win this day. This took a lot of deliberation. Both stories are good in their own way, and weak in their own way. In fact, one story's weakness tends to be the other's strength. Rhino's story has a ton of heart. It's cute, almost too cute, and really captures the effusive, lilting tone of many Kipling stories. I'm reminded heavily of The Elephant's Child and, to a lesser degree, The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo. It also has the better character development arc, which is a key point to a Just So story. Jerks get comeuppance, and either learn from it or are left disappointed/angry. See How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin. Little Rhino is a jerk, gets abandoned, nobody helps him, and he learns about want and worry. Also, aside from one dirty aside (the facesitting joke), Rhino's story is told with a straight face. Between that and the lighthearted language, it comes off as bubbly and fun. On the other hand, Muffin's story is by far the more lyrical. The language flows with lovely, fluid alliterative sequences; it's clearly poetic, while also crisp and clean. It also captures another major part of Kipling: it explains a clear, present situation with a mythical origin story. How did the kiwi lose its wings and how did the fantail get its voice? It's explained. Also, the songs are wicked cute, even if they're a bit more cynical than uplifting. Now for the weaknesses. Rhino, we'll need to work on a few minor points of grammar. Improper pronouns, tense shifts, minor things like that. quote:There he slept and ate and played, child of his momma, the nicest old rhino you and I know, and all the rainforest knew her by baby rhino momma’s name. Here, you shift tenses in the middle of the sentence. I'm not buying the "you and I know" bit, although I like the tone you're going for. I just checked and couldn't find Kipling breaking tenses in the middle of a sentence. The times he shifts from past to present are when discussing the illustrations accompanying the text. My big complaint is Corpse Flower. He just kind of appears and asks Baby Rhino a question, which shatters poor Baby Rhino's world. It's clearly meant to move the plot along, but it doesn't really make sense; it feels out of place. Why doesn't Corpse Flower have a momma? It would have been nice to set him up somehow earlier, and maybe reference him again somehow later on, so he's more vital to the story. Finally, and this is more of a contrast to Muffin's story, your character's change doesn't seem to describe the origin of an evident trait or condition. Or maybe I'm wrong and rhinos are really reflective, happy things. I'm not sure how you could have tied this in better. That's not to say I didn't like the change; you've got the better character development going on, and I like Baby Rhino's lesson. I just wish it also explained some outward thing! Muffin, you lost this largely because Rhino had a better plot arc. Fantail feels pretty extraneous to the plot. If Kiwi had been the flying, singing jerk that got his bloody comeuppance, I'd be looking less askance at you. Someone getting something for nothing is not very Just So, if you ask me. Tighter, clearer characters with well-defined arcs are what I'd like to see from you. I'm also not totally buying Kea mistaking Kiwi for Fantail. It seems a bit too convenient; you need to set it up somehow. Kea seems to know that Fantail doesn't have great big wings, and that Kiwi does. Seems the sort of thing that'd be apparent when someone's fluttering down from the branches. The other thing is that I can't get rid of the feeling like the whole story was written with a wry, ironic smile on your face. Your first few paragraphs are very cute, but by the time the fantail-kea conflict gets going, the tone of voice gets lost amidst gritty grimdarkness, and the narrator revels in it. It feels very modern, in the way that modern media can't seem to take things seriously, instead of being archaically adorable. I like your last line, I giggled, but it really reinforces the ironic tone. It's very  .Finally, and this is a minor note, you had an odd break in narratorial voice. Early on, you go with straight English, like Kipling: quote:Now kea down on the forest floor, he had no wings. He'd lost them even before the time before. And then shortly thereafter you seem to slip into patois: quote:Now kea had plenty fear and plenty brains, but that song made the clouds in his head roil and turn dark. The smart part of him went back and the rage come fore'. I'm definitely not buying plenty fear and plenty brains, nor went back/came fore; it doesn't match your narratorial tone elsewhere, and you established that Kea is smart, so why is his narrator suddenly talking like an undereducated guy from out in the bush? Erogenous Beef fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jun 7, 2013 |
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Jun 7, 2013 00:16
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1 Kings 17:1-7 posted:And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.” Yeah. Uh. Well, this happened. I'm counting the emoticons as one word each. Gus Gascan, Space Janitor (1,354 words) “On my orders, the Space Marines will distribute muffins today. There is no need to panic,” said the Space President’s televised face. Gus’ laptop beeped. The Space President had posted a message on his wall.  : @Gascan! It’s chaos out there. We’ve almost run the strategic croissant reserve dry, and there’s still no answer from the bakeries. You’re our only hope. : Thanks, sir. But isn’t this a job for the @Space Police?: Doughnut withdrawal. They ran out of spacetry five days ago, they’re completely paralyzed. Also, you’re already en route for the Noodle Incident. Godspeed, we’re all counting on you!On television, the President claimed the crisis would soon pass. That news was, of course, seven days old. Fortunately, one thing travels faster than light: gossip. But, posting orders openly on Spacebook? The President must be desperate. Gus landed the SGS Oscar on the empty starmac outside an enormous orbital factory flanked by a small pizza shack. “All right, Bark, no time to waste! Orders from the top!” Beside Gus’ chair, Bark Doggington, the smartest cat in the galaxy, yawned and licked her fur. “My contract stipulates 20 hours of sleep a day.” Gus shook a treat canister. The cat bolted to his side, purring. “Well, if it’s an emergency.” # The five-mile-long factory station lay silent. “I don’t like this, Bark. It’s like everyone just got up and left.” Gus frowned. “And they even left the lights on. What do you make of that, Bark? … Bark?” The cat pawed at a water fountain’s spout. “What? I’m thirsty.” Gus sighed and hit the button. The fountain rattled, gurgled, and spat up only a single drop before dying. “Mystery solved, Gus. No water, no dough, no spacetries.” A thud rocked the station, knocking the cat to the floor. “Were we expecting someone else?” “No, aside from the pizza joint, we’re the only civilians with clearance for Bakeylon Five.” Gus grabbed Bark and sprinted outside. “Maybe the Space Police came to help!” Beneath the infinite starry blanket of space, a black shuttle squatted beside the Oscar. Both ships’ hatches were ajar. “Gus, did you leave the ship unlocked again?” A man in black spandex jumped out of the Oscar, scurried into the shuttle. It swooped away and disappeared into the star-pocked void. Gus raced aboard his ship, sent Bark to the bridge and opened his locker. His prized mop, Bessy, still stood beside other, lesser mops. Phew! “I’ve hacked in,” barked the intercom. Back on the bridge, a screen played a security recording. Dozens of black-clad men carted away huge drums. A royal coat-of-arms sparkled silver on the thieves’ sleeves. Bark pawed the monitor. “It’s Mercury’s queen.” “But, no one’s heard from them since they retreated to their secret base.” “Also, the scanner’s calculated these coordinates.” Gus arched an eyebrow. “That’s not a very secret base.” Bark shrugged. “It’s a known unknown.” “There’s no time to lose, engage the overthruster!” Gus punched a button. The ship didn’t move. He pressed twice more. Nothing. “Wait here.” Gus unlocked the engine compartment, crawled inside. When the overthruster ran, his ship was the fastest in the galaxy. Without it, he might as well push. “Hey there little guy.” Gus bent over a cage. Inside, a miniature giant space hamster napped on its wheel. “Come on, wake up. It’s an emergency.” He tapped the feed bottle. “Have some yums?” The hamster waddled over, sucked, and collapsed. Gus touched the nozzle: dry! “Computer, where’s the Space Bull?” The calm voice of a Wroxeter gentleman replied, “I’m afraid there’s no water in the tanks, sir. I cannot synthesize Space Bull without water.” The little hamster began to quiver and buried his face in a small, dark helmet. He returned to the bridge. “Things are bad, Bark. The overthruster’s in withdrawal. We’ll never catch them before the galaxy destroys itself.” Bark licked a paw, ran it over her ear. “There’s one thing faster than the Oscar, Gus. Do you have ten pound?” Since coffee woke everyone up in the morning, the pound brewing had long ago supplanted other currencies. “Yeah, just. Why?” “Hungry?” The cat pointed her nose across the tarmac to a little stinking hut topped with neon pepperoni. One sign advertised two-topping pies for ten quid. Another announced deliveries in thirty minutes or less, or your money back. # The delivery guy shook his fist. “One pound tip? Cheapskate.” He slammed the door and zoomed away. Bark glared at Gus. “What? I’m out of starbucks.” “At least we know where all the water went,” said Bark. Vast green fields rolled away across the immense spacedeck, dotted by trees and sandtraps. Plaid-trousered men trotted about smacking tiny balls which sailed for miles and miles. “So, Gascan, think you’re gonna be a big man? Not today.” A black hood zipped away the universe. Gus awoke suspended by shackles, hanging above a giant, empty cistern lined with monitors. Bark dangled beside him and in the doorway stood a handsome man with a thick, blocked moustache, a buckle-laden yellow jacket and a metal plate over a smoldering red eye. Freddie of Mercury smirked. “Gus, the galaxy’s greatest mind laid my plans. You can’t stop me now.” Bark’s ear twitched. “The greatest mind? Please, tell.” “Simple. We create the greatest golf course mankind has ever seen. From its duffers we extract one thing everybody wants: free time. For fifteen bottled minutes, everyone will kneel before me. I’ll be king of the universe.” “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. And I hang out with him.” Bark nodded at Gus. “It’s foolproof. Rubot Goldberg himself designed it.” Bark licked her nose. “Listen, I’ve a better plan. Let me go.” “I will not let you go.” “Let me go.” Gus shook his chains. “Bark, stop! He’s a madman.” “I’m just very emotional, darling. Cat, you have a deal, but I’m still killing your friend.” Freddie hit a switch. Caterwauling children, hippies spanking guitars, and hundreds of kitten videos shone on the cistern’s screens. From beneath them seeped a stream of the most toxic thing in the galaxy. Gus gasped. “Youtube comments!” Freddie cackled, unlocked Bark and carried her away. Bark glanced back, her eyes twinkling. Gus struggled to no avail. He hung above the burbling cistern as it filled. Freddie strode in smiling and carrying a metal rod. Bark sat in the corner, washing. Tears rose in Gus’ eyes. “You gave him Bessy. Bark, why?” Bark Doggington sniffed. “What, did you mistake me for your best friend?” She rubbed Freddie’s leg. “Just hit the button.” Gus choked. Not that button! An inverse tachyon mop cleans all stains, but reverse the polarity and it’s an unquenchable stream of filth. He glanced down. Well, it couldn’t be worse than the Youtube comments. Freddie aimed, clicked the button and the mop spewed a chattering black laser of the galaxy’s purest, vilest filth into the pool. “Douche,” shrieked the mop. “Go back to Halo, cockmuncher!” Freddie jumped. “What—“ “XBox chat,” said Bark. The crude beam lanced into the cistern and the liquid grew dark, darker until it glowed blacker than space itself. “How long does it take?” Freddie glanced around. “Cat?” Bark cowered beyond the door. “Gus! Hold on tight!” A flash of infinite nothingness and then the comments and chatter collapsed down into a singularity of poo poo-talk, slurping in everything around it. A smack hole! Freddie shrieked and the event horizon swallowed him. Pieces of space-steel tore from the walls and vanished. The mop orbited closer and closer, sweeping dangerously close to the hole. Gus rocked back and forth, grabbed the mop between his feet. He bent double, strained to reach the switch. Click. The laser vanished and the smack hole hovered in midair, quivering. Bark leapt onto a computer, walked on the keys. Gus’ shackles burst open, he grabbed the chains and swung free. He grabbed Bark, sprinted to the Oscar, punched the spacedrive. The secret base exploded behind them as the merry duo flew away into the void. Another mess cleaned up by Gus Gascan, Space Janitor!
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Jun 9, 2013 10:42
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Put up or shut up. We don't care about your troubles, only your scribbles. 
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Jun 9, 2013 17:01
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sebmojo posted:Also, when the judges take too long you tell them to WAKE THE gently caress UP Sauce for the goose... How about it, cap?
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Jun 18, 2013 09:56
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In before my better judgement takes over.
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Jun 18, 2013 14:12
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Givin' this week a shot. In.
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Jun 25, 2013 09:35
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Find Them And You Can Resist (520 words) A bloodied letter: Artillery pounds my roof and I realize now how wrong I was: they trapped me, just as they’ve trapped you. If you’re reading this, they wanted you to read it. If it survives beyond the bullet I’ll put in my brain, when the Soviets swarm down into this concrete tomb they let me build, they wanted my words to survive. Whether it suits them or not, I will show you: they arrange everything, everything to amuse their whims. They may have cornered this animal, but they have not conquered him. There is one place even their omnipotent grasp cannot reach, and that is here, my sanctum, my soon-sepulcher. My downfall began as I sat in a theater. Half-past midnight, as Orson Welles rode the Riesenrad, their anonymous man approached and introduced himself, the eponymous son of Herr Dreizig Junior. Men of power do not chatter. Beyond the theater, I commanded an unbreakable machine, and in nine hours I would forge its strongest alliance. By what accident had they arranged our meeting today? “There is no chance nor fate,” he said. “As we agreed, your end approaches. Join us in shadow, or fall.” I chose to believe I alone had built an empire, with favors neither given nor received. “We created you.” Lies. “We have always created men of your standing.” Lies. “And we have always destroyed you.” Lies. Twenty-seven years prior, a Viennese cafe in Landstrasse near Richard Lionheart’s folly. My name immortalized, my power unquestioned, and for this they asked trifles. Who were these men who offered so much and needed so little?” “We are power,” they had said. “Men invent our names. They named us when we were Rome’s vox populi and its emperors, they named us when we preached in the desert, they named us the people of the French uprising. They name us even now for you and will again in sixty years for a Rockefeller.” I had remarked on the providence that our interests coincided. “There is no chance nor fate,” they had said. “Only we shepherds.” In the theater, I was blind to the evidence, believed myself free. I walked out and, that day of the twenty-seventh September, signed a pact and believed it my own. I was wrong. They, of course, drafted and approved its six clauses. Now they have torn me down, but I will end this puppet farce. I have spent five long years pretending it was I who moved men as pawns, but I am the pawn. A pawn should not know the mind of the hand moving it. But they are men, not gods: they leave tracks any with this knowledge can see, and those who see can defy them - you can defy them. As can I. There is one path left to me— I am broken. Here in my drawer, beneath the paper I stashed to write this very note, they left their final message. They knew my mind, they have always known my mind. My pistol is a six-chambered revolver. There is no chance nor fate. 30 Apr 1945
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Jun 30, 2013 22:45
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Kaishai posted:Erogenous Beef, "Find Them And You Can Resist" Actually, making you feel like you were missing something and wanted to go back to figure it out was the intent. I wanted the story to make you feel like a character in a conspiracy novel, like the Illuminatus! trilogy, where you spot patterns which unfold into other patterns. The thrill of discovery and solving a riddle, with a sense that there's always something bigger going on that you can't quite comprehend, but only feel. Regardless, thanks for the crit and for rising to the challenge of Literary Where's Waldo.  However, you got maybe half the threes. I've explained them all in the farm. Kaishai posted:You're probably going to get top marks for cleverness. Whether that leads to a win or not, imagine me applauding slowly like the man in the movie theater .gif. Bravo, E. Beef, you magnificent bastard. The man in that gif? Orson Welles. It's from Citizen Kane.  
Erogenous Beef fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 11:47
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In. I chose the Scrambler and it tossed me these Grade 4-6 eggs: Write a funny story about an Arctic private eye who finds an undiscovered island. Well, that's not as bad as it could have been.
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Jul 2, 2013 20:34
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Erogenous Beef posted:In. I chose the Scrambler and it tossed me these Grade 4-6 eggs: Lies. Twice scrapped other concepts, written entirely during a 2-hour flight and edited in a bar. gently caress you. Beer for the Beer Gods (1265 words) “A lost island with enough gold to drown criminals. Well, we found it, for all the good it’ll do,” said Karl as a pool cue prodded him towards a caldera filled with a billion gallons of glowing-hot ice beer. “We wouldn’t’ve ended up here if you’d rented a decent boat, not the Suplex Biceps.” “‘Ey, like the Dainty Lady? You think that sea-god would’ve hated it less?” Dyspepito del Norte scratched his mask. “You gringos, a zodiac is a fine boat.” “For smuggling, maybe!” Seven days drifting in the sun and Karl’s beer had all dried up. The beach patrol had taken one look at the canned white powder and hauled them before a judge. A thirty-minute trial later and they stood atop a brocano, hands cuffed in six-pack rings behind their backs, about to be boiled alive. Wind whipped a black hockey jersey against the judge’s burly frame. Flanking him were two officers, one in red, one in blue. The ocean sun had bleached both Karl and Dyspepito’s clothes pastel; that alone was a capital offense, but with the Games on, the judge explained, not wearing team colors was grounds for instant execution. That and possession of dried, powdered beer. Dyspepito being a luchador didn’t exactly help their case; Norwegian passports or not, the judge denounced them as smugglers from the island’s narco-enemy, Brolivia. The masked wrestler stood at the end of a diving board, chest thrust proudly into the air. An officer poked him in the neck with a pool cue. “Last words?” “gently caress the brolice,” said Dyspepito. Another poke. The cue caught on the wrestler’s mask, tore it off. The first light it’d seen in decades fried Dyspepito’s long-shielded skin instantly. He yelped, tore the stick from the officer’s hand and suplexed him over the edge. Teeth and face bared, he turned on the judge. The men in red, blue and black dropped to their knees in supplication. “The mark! He’s come from the north to judge the Games!” The sudden sun had burned on the wrestler’s forehead the legendary eight-kegged steed, Sleipbier. The officers cloaked Dyspepito in a red bathrobe. “Chosen of Brodin, your box seat awaits.” “Hey, what about me?” asked Karl. All eyes went to the beatified luchador. He shrugged. “Let him chill.” Hands seized Karl and dragged him to a cooler. A red-shirted officer shoved him in and a blue-shirted officer slammed the lid closed. Karl relaxed in the icewater; being Norwegian, this was a jacuzzi. # Karl bashed the lid. “All good. Let me out.” “Sorry, Brodin’s dude said to put you on ice. Only another divine can lift the order.” “Uh, I’m chosen too.” “You got no mark.” Think fast. “But the sea god sent me here!” The lid opened. The officers peered at him, at each other. “Let’s settle this rationally,” said the red one. “I agree,” said the blue one and punched Red’s jaw. Red toppled and Blue hauled Karl from the ice. “The Reds have Brodin’s champion. My team also needs a champion in the Games, but you must prove you’re worthy.” Karl nodded. “No problem. Got spray paint and a football?” # Karl waded into the sea, football in hand, the undersides of his arms painted sparkling gold. He palmed the ball, fidgeted. On the shore, a dozen blue-shirted men stood with arms crossed, baseball caps shading their eyes. They sipped from sweaty cans of Natty Light. It took some convincing, but Karl had gotten six cheap beers, a pot and an hour with a stove to cook the Natty into fine, white powder. He impregnated the pigskin with it, creating a potent pill of brocaine. He hoisted the hand-egg and threw, keeping his arms aloft, his golden triceps completing the improvised summoning. The ball hit the water and a foam-bearded god with impeccable abs erupted from the waves, a three-hosed beer bong in one hand. “‘Sup?” Broseidon lifted his shutter-shades, studied the blue team and grinned. “Oh poo poo, time for the Games? Dude, I fuckin’ blanked.” He extended a fist to Karl. “Man, that was a righteous throw. Brodin’s gonna get hosed up.” They bumped knuckles. The blue team cheered, hoisted Karl on their shoulders, and carried him stadiumward. # “The score is sixty-nine, sixty-nine!” The announcer’s voice boomed through the arena. Thousands of men lined the bleachers, giant foam shockers entrenched on fists. “And so, to close the Brolympic Games, our champions will play the ultimate sport in the ultimate arena!” Karl sat hunched in his dugout. His skates were too small and the beer helmet on his head was heavy with bad lager. “What are the rules?” bellowed the announcer. The crowd roared: “Two men enter, one man leaves!” A bit of sweat trickled down Karl’s cheek. He was just a PI, and a bad one at that. The only cases he cracked were twenty-packs of PBR. Dyspepito was a champion luchador in his prime. Two weeks ago, when the wrestler forced him onto a zodiac at gunpoint to find long-lost Brodesta, he thought it a kind of bad joke, but now, here, in the hot sweat of the dugout, it was all too real. A vuvuzela buzzed and a ref tossed him onto the field. Dyspepito rocketed from his own dugout, unmasked face gleaming in the sun. Karl broke away, skating hard around the arena. The crowd booed, jeered, tossed bottles at him. Broller derby was blood-sport, and they shouted their thirst. The luchador cut him off and suplexed. Karl’s skull cracked on the earth. He rolled away, jumped and skated for the ringside bar. “Mudslide.” The brotender obliged. Karl grabbed the red cup and sidestepped, arm outstretched. He caught Dyspepito’s throat and the big luchador toppled. The crowd cheered. Karl poured the drink over the wrestler’s lips. Dyspepito coughed, swallowed. His eyes widened, shock spreading over his face, and then doubled over. “drat you, Karl. My lactose intolerance!” He writhed, groaning. Karl turned to the crowd, arms wide. They booed. “Only one man leaves, contestant,” said the announcer. “That is the law of Thunderbrome!” The wrestler was his opponent, but not his enemy. Karl shook his head. A gate ejaculated a horde of polo-shirted, football-helmeted apes. Their fangs glinted in the sun. Karl scooped up Dyspepito, skated to the sidelines and tore a surfboard from a spectator’s hands. He crouched before the crowd, then rose, flipping his hands overhead. He did it twice, three times and then crowd also rose, flipped their hands, sat. It rippled through the stands; Karl tossed the board atop the crowd and leapt aboard, riding the Wave. He crowd-surfed around the stadium, then banked towards the shore. Screaming bloodthirsty brorillas chased his wake. On the beach, Broseidon reclined between palm trees, sipping milk from half a hard, brown shell. He raised his shades at Karl and held out his drink. “Broconut?” “Thanks dude, but I need to get the gently caress outta Dodge.” Broseiden grinned. “Just wade out past the waterline. Out there it’s the law of the sea, and I can gently caress with that.” Karl hoisted the groaning Dyspepito to his feet, dragged him into the surf, nodded at the god. Broseidon snapped his fingers and, in a tachyonic flash, they were home. Karl Karlsson currently resides on the Brolearic Archipelago, still cracking cases of PBR. Dyspepito del Norte entered an intensive debrogramming clinic and has since returned to wrestling. The authorities of the island of Brodesta could not be reached for comment.
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Jul 8, 2013 00:29
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Sitting Here posted:I'm pretty sure this is the second slapstick piece of brose about bros that I've judged. In fact I'm certain, I think it was Hillock who brought us the Bromicide investigator, or whatever. Your story didn't have cossack fighting pants though. Clearly you are unfamiliar with the hot, new, Hillock-founded literary genre of highbrow teleological exegesis: bromantic comedy. Anyway, I have only scraps of time for the next 2 weeks and I've developed a taste for my own blood, so I'mma toss down a Thunderbrawl challenge to a participant p: p ∈ {Fanky Malloons, Sebmojo, Sitting Here}. One stipulation: a due date no earlier than the 23rd.
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Jul 11, 2013 09:55
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Sitting Here posted:Come at me bro Who will be the noble judgly Spartacus, destined for crucifixion upon the prose of these two Crassi? (judge, prompt, due date, etc.)
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Jul 11, 2013 16:48
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Noah posted:Want to remind Erogenous Beef and Sitting Here that they've got a brawl due this Sunday. I have been sweating uncontrollably about this for a week. The 30C heat might also have something to do with it.
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Jul 23, 2013 16:20
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Jagermonster posted:Sometimes it surprises me how many non-Americans post in this thread. But then when I think about it, it makes a lot of sense. I feel so sophisticated competing in writing contests with cultured Brits and weirdo Australians, etc., instead of arguing about tv shows/movies/comic books with my fellow Americans. I'm actually an American, but I've been an expat for over 6 years now. You adapt pretty quick. My estimates in kilometers are still kinda kooky, though.
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Jul 23, 2013 17:52
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Anathema Device posted:Seriously folks, who is going to volunteer as the third judge? Don't make me put a random person on the spot. I got your back. PMs and IRC are the easiest ways to find me.
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Jul 26, 2013 20:12
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Nikaer Drekin posted:Yep, the one stored with socks Don't knock my smock or I'll clean your clock. Noah posted:Want to remind Erogenous Beef and Sitting Here that they've got a brawl due this Sunday. Thunderbrawl Entry v. Sitting "Blood Queen" Here Prompt: Kudzu is an unstoppable force of nature. Tell me a story about something (anything) growing out of control. Genre: American Gothic Theme: An overwhelming feeling of being out of place. Word count: 1500-2000 Due date: July 28th 11:59 PST. Mirrors (1998 words) A tiny black hand clamps my shoulder as I clutch the sink with both hands, staring wide-eyed at my sweat-bedewed face in a clean circle I’ve made on the lavatory mirror. The hand scrabbles over my twenty-dollar blazer - why did I ever think that would impress her? - and wraps around my neck. I pull out a flask, unscrew it and tip liquid calm into my face. “Yeah, the sauce, that’ll help.” Its voice is steel going through a wood chipper. I’ve never seen its face. It usually just taps on my shoulder, whispers in my ear. I’ve only ever seen a hand before. I know it’s madness, I know it’s not there, but I still feel its weight clinging to my back. I plunk down atop a toilet seat in a doorless stall and slam back more whiskey. It’s too rough to neck straight, but cheap enough that I don’t care. Another man comes in, middle-aged, in a proper suit. He meets my eyes; the loving stall faces the exit. He gawps for a moment at this poor, disheveled, moptopped, sweaty kid perched pants-up on a filthy toilet, then turns and takes a loud piss, urine percussing brown porcelain. He rinses and leaves without another look. I’ve been in here too long. Nine minutes. She thinks either I’m taking a dump or I’ve left and she’s already calling up her friends and telling them about this loser who took her to Barrelin’ Stan’s Porkhouse for salmonella-grade ribs on the first date and then ran out before the first beer showed up. A loathsome boy with the conversational acumen of a deaf-mute orangutan whose least deplorable accomplishment is brushing his teeth while making GBS threads. I plunge back out into the crowded diner. She’s sitting there flicking at her cell phone, doesn’t even look at me when I slide back into my chair. The drinks are here, we clink glasses. Beer should keep the whiskey off my breath. She’s saying stuff, chatting, first-date small talk. I nod along, study her face. She’s perfect, a glowing angel in the middle of this greasy hell, and she’s keeping a straight face while talking to a half-drunk flop-sweating Satan. She’s not even slouching, her boredom’s perfectly concealed. It’s almost like she wants to be here. She’s looking at me again. Quiet now. She’s waiting for me to say something. poo poo, what did I miss? “Uh, yeah, pretty much anything I guess.” A little black hand swats my head. “Nice going, douche. She was asking about your family.” The thing is still clinging to my throat. I crack a grin and make a hippie joke about everyone being my family, y’know? I barf up an anecdote to round out the joke. She chuckles. “At you, not with you,” says the darkness. Our ribs arrive. I chew on mine, she talks about something or other. I sit there, water rolling down my face as I mull over the failed joke. This always happens. I gotta listen, focus, get back in the conversation’s flow. I nod along, grab my glass and gulp. Burning! My throat’s ablaze. I spit, drop the hot sauce bottle, chug beer. It’s a brief respite, and my date sits speechless, flecked with red spatters like she’s been to a slaughter. “Good going, rear end in a top hat. How long’s your dry spell so far, four months? Hope you’re ready for two more weeks!” The darkness hauls itself up and sits on my shoulder. It’s a fat, squat black glob with its face inset in its blobby torso, arms and legs springing out of the slime like whiskers from a hairball. I apologize to her and the waiter and empty my wallet. It’s enough for a ten-percent tip. I smile at my date. She’s barely even touched her meal. I jet for the door without looking back. Man, I can’t even imagine the blog post she’s gonna write about me. # What a loving disaster. I don’t know how this even happened. I get home and go back to trawling an online dating site while the darkness lounges on the couch, reciting my failures. Hello, rear end in a top hat, I’m trying to contact every chick in the area, anything with a pulse. I’m down in the three-percent match range, mass-mailing a letter I specially composed. It’s the perfect blend of self-effacing, ironic and flirty. “Actually, it’s all needy, desperate bullshit,” says the darkness. My finger hovers above “Send” for an extra second, then hits it. Gotta try again after that last debacle. My phone buzzes. Lisanne, from the rib joint. She wants another date. What the gently caress? “Clearly you’ve found someone as hosed up and desperate as you. Enjoy your broken-home clingwhore, Romeo.” After two nights and a bunch of fouled socks, I’m standing at the eighth hole of the Putt-Putt Palace. She suggested it. I haven’t played minigolf since I was six. What’s worse, she’s actually pretty good and I’m ten strokes behind and there’s no loving way I can win. “Heh, you’re gonna get beat by a girl.” The darkness hangs on me like a lead backpack. This wasn’t the plan. I gotta make up for that hot sauce incident, impress this chick somehow. I mean, right now I’m some Tabasco-chugging moron, but after this I’m a total loser who can’t even play a kid’s game right. Without a good gambit, I’ll be playing one-man sock hockey again. Forever. She sinks her ball, grins, flips her putter up in the air like a baton, and catches it on the way down. Smooth. I can top that. I scoop up my ball, walk back down to the tee. It’s one of those split-level holes, with the ball supposed to go up a long curved ramp, drop down a tube and squirt out onto the green. I tee up and turn way way off to the side. Quick glance. She’s watching me now, frowning, eyebrow cocked. I got her attention. Good. I point at the decorative windmill behind her, wind up and whack my ball like Tiger Woods. It shoots past her head, caroms off the windmill, bounces off the green and plunks into the lake. poo poo. She’s laughing. “Laughing at you. At. You.” I want to punch the darkness in the face. I want to punch myself in the face. What a stupid idea that was. I shuck off my shoes, roll up my jeans and wade into the little pond. Pond mud squishes between my toes. I step on the ball, lean over. Wait, better idea. I steady myself and prod around in the murk until I’ve got a fix on the ball, line up and whack! A brown orb flies up, whacks off a stone and rolls onto the green. Plunk. It’s in the hole! She laughs the whole time, whooping like a soccer-game air horn. “Hope you’re proud of yourself. Splashing around like a kiddie in a wading pool. Man, you look like a chump now, pants wet and rolled up, mud up to your ankles. Who are you, loving Tom Sawyer?” Grinding my teeth, I snatch my ball from the hole. It’s the wrong color. gently caress, I can’t even find the right ball. She sniggers all the way through the final hole. At the clubhouse, the pimply kid behind the counter glances at my soaked jeans and muddy feet. He says nothing, but a smirk breaks across his face. He’s laughing, inside. Lisanne prods me as we pay. “You know you could’ve just asked for another ball, right?” Both she and the cashier kid burst out laughing again. I throw down my last twenty and stomp to the bus stop, alone. # I’m browsing the dating website again. Five hundred women looked at my profile after I sent out those letters yesterday. Not a single reply. Scrolling through the portraits is like getting rejected half a thousand times all at once, one grinning face after another, a regiment of judgmental strangers smirking as you ride past on a digital people-mover. “Just have another wank,” says the darkness. It has engulfed the couch. In the bin next to my desk, there’s a mound of used tissues. Those two slimy heaps, one midnight-black, one pearl-white, they feed on one another. My phone buzzes. “And that’s the sound of you getting dumped for good,” says the darkness. I sent Lisanne a text a couple hours ago, apologized for the golf game, asked if she wanted to get a coffee. She said she was “too busy”. We all know what that means. So I had a few beers with lunch and sent her another text. Same offer. I glance at the phone for a second. It’s her number. I toss the thing back on the desk. “Wow, too much of a wuss to even read your dump. You’re a real charmer, John. A lady killer.” It licks wet lips. “The kind with knives.” I close the browser. gently caress it. I open the phone. “Hey, can we talk? 6 PM.” Address of a coffee shop. “She cares enough to give you the friend speech in person. Sweet girl. You know how to pick ‘em.” The darkness kisses its fingers. “Just think. You, her, a table in the middle of a crowded java joint.” I can see it. No matter how loud or soft she speaks, every single person there will know what’s up. It’ll be written all over her pinched face, my slumped shoulders and downcast eyes. I’ll sit there staring at the little heart the barista will have drawn in my latte. Just pour more insults onto my injury, thanks. And then she’s gonna say how nice I am and the usual scripted bullshit but that we don’t really “click” but it’d be cool if we could just maybe see each other now and then, as friends, and then I’ll nod and mumble something contrite, and then text her once a week for like a month, and she’ll always be too busy but we’ll manage an awkward drink a few times, the interval growing longer and longer until we finally give up the loving charade and stop doing it. “Yeah, that’s how it’ll roll out.” The darkness breathes a hot foul stink near my ear. “There’s a way out, you know.” A little box drops into my lap. A ten pack of the double-edged razor blades like my dad shaved with. Last time I saw one, I was helping him jam his poo poo into a Hyundai before he drove off with my mother standing stonefaced at the door. He never even wrote. gently caress him. I draw out a blade. It sparkles like a steel diamond. “That’s right. Just up the wrists.” I run some warm water and stare at the burnished blade as the tub fills. Once it’s full, I climb in clothed. The dark thing peeks in through the bathroom door. “Go on, it’s easy.” I press blade to skin. It tickles. A bloody bead pops up. My phone buzzes. I drop the blade, leap out of the water. It’s Lisanne again. “Really hoping you can make it. ”“Man, she’s laying it on thick. A regular black widow, eh?” “You know what? gently caress you.” I drop the blades and lunge at the bloated thing. My fist slams its beady, puckered face. Volcanic, inchoate rage erupts from my lungs. I kick and punch and tear and bite and chew and claw, its sponginess giving in to the blows and it squeals like a half-slaughtered pig and I hit and hit until I’m numb. I’m laying on my couch. Alone. It’s just me and my soaked clothes. I open the curtains. Late summer sun streams in, mops all the darkness out of the room. I shoot her an affirmative, change, head down to the shop early and get a coffee. She walks in, smiles. I smile back.
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Jul 29, 2013 00:27
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ThunderCrits - Week LI Anathema may have been wowed by your pathetic attempts to smear words on the screen, but some of us (sup) were not so enamored. Nubile Hillock - The Grapes of Math Cute title, bro. So originally I thought this was another bro-piece with cyberspace. Then it became about loser teenager libertarians. Okay. Unfortunately you've got an unsubtly mocking tone that suffuses the piece. It makes all of your characters grossly unsympathetic and two-dimensional. Jason is just a bully and Quincy is a goon. Great. Some depth? I would've liked to see the Bitcoin background be something other than pointing and snickering. You're too-obviously making fun of it; it's mean instead of amusing. You fit the prompt fine; there pretty much wasn't any twisting going on, but the progression from "I want my bro's gf" to "murder" was pretty abrupt. That might be a function of word count, but it's still an issue. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Mostly Live on Page: 3. And then 6. And then 12, its position doubling each time someone mines a bitcoin. -- Besesoth - Voyagers So, right off, I find all the dialogue hard to follow. You're throwing in a lot of action-transmitted-via-sound and your attributions are sometimes a bit weird. You need to work on clarity there; cutting some unneeded attributions would help ("Can it go back?" I asked, feeling my etc. etc. - cut "I asked" and show that it's the narrator via action.) You've also got a lot of characters flying around in the first half. Thomas, Rene, Janet, Kristine, plus the doubles. Do you need all of them? This seems like you could've just narrowed it down to the interlocutor and the narrator, which also makes the ending more personal, as there's the tension between the interlocutor's desire to see the dinosaurs and the narrator's desire for the interlocutor to not become Allosaurus Chow. For the prompt, I'm torn. I pretty much saw the ending coming a mile away. It's the obvious place for it to go. At the same time, since you don't imply _what_ the ending is earlier, it ends up being a sort-of surprise. It's just an unsurprising twist. Not bad, but it needs work on clarity and pacing. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Mostly Live on Page: 7. You have to do some digging to find it, but it's not a bad read once you get there. -- Nikaer Drekin - Garry Malloy Stands His Ground Your prose reads fine to me; the whole thing scans well. It could always be tighter, but you're better than most in this round. The main problem is one you share with Hillock. Garry is a total caricature. Maybe that's a cute meta-joke since you're doing the political cartoons thread, but it's too hipstermeta for me. The obviously and overtly mocking tone strips away any humor there might have been and makes your protagonist eye-rollingly unsympathetic. That said, I like the end. There's no twist, everything goes straight-through as you'd expect in "real life." It works well and makes for good commentary on overreactions and hyperactive imaginations. Not sure if it's a winner, but it's in my upper tier. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Mostly Live on Page: 2, but half the posts get people probated. -- M. Propagandalf - Small Game So, you've got a good tone for a childhood lesson story. It comes off like an anecdote. The main problem is that your prose is clunky. M. Propagandalf posted:With his pith hat tilted against the sun, he looked at the cat ahead of him, lazily sprawled out and unaware of him. --of him, --of him. Eliminate repetitions like this. The latter "him" is also somewhat ambiguous - is the boy sprawled out and unaware of the cat, or vice versa? You do a lot of "he looked at", "he listened to", "he thought about". These clauses are passive clutter and can often be eliminated. "He looked at the cat (etc.)" vs. "The cat sprawled out ahead of him, lazy and oblivious." Try to show us things through the character's senses rather than reporting what the character senses; it brings us closer to the character. M. Propagandalf posted:"Gotcha!" Alex shouted triumphantly. loving ouch. 'Shouted' is irrelevant here since you're already using an exclamation point, and we can tell that it's triumphant from context. You could just chop this entire attribution as there's no other speaking characters until Dad shows up 400 words later. Work on cleaning up your mechanics. You hit the prompt perfectly and the story's structure and pacing sound much like a personal anecdote. Well done. A leaner, cleaner version of this could very well have been a contender, in my book. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Live on Page: None. It got sent to e/n, but it's in the top ten there. -- Whalley - Ramonacoaster Harsh. Your word choices are alien. Mona feels robotic the entire time and, for most of the story, you're sitting there swatting me in the face with backstory and exposition. Why is Mona afraid of roller coasters? Why do they fascinate her? At no point do I get the sense that there's something working beneath the surface here, that there's some emotional subtext I'm missing. No, some girl loves coasters, her nephews drag her on one, and she dies. You also do the same thing Besesoth did - the so-obvious-it's-not-a-twist twist ending. Only this time it's abrupt and accidental. Between the clunky prose and clunky plot, this one's in my helldump for this round. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Live on Page: 15. Wait, 20. Wait, 25. Oops, it's in the archives.  -- crabrock - Two Enourmous Fat Men gently caress Me Well, the title got my attention. Though more in a "hmm, maybe I can put off reading this one until I've critiqued everything else. And vacuumed my flat. And done my taxes. And attended a ten-year meditation retreat in Tibet" sense rather than a "1992's Vanessa Williams crooning 'Save The Best For Last' in my ear while she lies naked on a white bearskin with a bottle of Grand Cru and two glasses in her hands" sense. Sorry, where was I? Right. Story. Ahem. It's much less awful than I was expecting from the title. Indeed, it's quite strong. Strong voice, strong images, strong concept. The two narrative threads tie together nicely at the end, although perhaps some of the backstory thread could refocus more on the "I'm useless" angle - it starts to veer into the general horror of the narrator's situation, e.g. the church bit. The prose could use a bit of work here and there. You've got some minor mistakes and word omissions: crabrock posted:In high school the boys used to drive by in their and throw soda cans at my head. Comma after "high school", and you need a word after "their". Presumably "cars". There's a couple minor things like this sprinkled throughout, but the rest of your voice is strong enough to donkey-punch them into submission. There's a few moments of opacity - "It feels like I thought it would." It took a sec for this to register as sex. It seems needlessly unclear; I can look up now and see that you've been swapping time periods with each para, but the previous transitions were well-marked and clear. This one could kinda refer to sitting in church being embarrassed. Anyway, this one's strong enough to get my nod for the week. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Live on Page: It'd jump between 1 and 2, and then some rear end in a top hat would commission a studio in Brazil to make stump.avi and the thread would be nuked from orbit. But at least it lives on. In our hearts, minds, and a grainy 9mm homegrown reel. -- Umbilical Lotus - Know Better So this is quite okay. It's a competent vignette. The main problem is that your prose is awkward and harsh in places, peppered with cliches and the occasional grammar error. Umbilical Lotus posted:"Are we going outside?" she asked, just as I wheeled her onto the stony path and answered her question for her. Mrs. Mulgrough was almost blind, but sharp as a sharkbite at 96 and very aware of changes in her surroundings. You're bashing me in the face here with exposition. If these are important plot elements, show 'em to me somehow. Maybe have her sniff the air, or a breeze ruffles her hair or something to convey the fact that she senses the world keenly, even without sight. "Sharp as a snakebite" is a terrible cliche, get rid of it. You show us some things and then never make the implications clear: What's important about the odd vase? What about the "zig-zag tatters"? Hell, what are "zig-zag tatters"? Is that a euphemism for pot leaves? And who is Allison Berry and why does she matter? I'm also not sold on the narrator calling the police. I think you need to establish the narrator as strict and intolerant earlier on - to achieve the dissonance between the narrator's thoughts and actions, you'd want to show us some strict act early on, then have the narrator interpret it as caring and correct. I recommended this for an honorable mention, but it's a borderline case with the prose. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Live On Page: 42. But it would never die. -- Jagermonster - The Finish Line So you edited 15 minutes after posting - presumably after a reread - and still didn't catch omitted words and grammar mistakes.  Your overall arc is decent, and I'm rooting for Scott even through the accident. That's good. That said, this really doesn't go anywhere. If this is going to be about Scott's emotions, we need a setup before the fall, then the rage, then the recovery/enlightenment/final defeat. He needs to learn something about his competitiveness; either that it's a good thing and gets him through the accident, or that it's a bad thing and causes the accident. Your phrasing needs work. You've got a lot of clunky sentence constructions. Look at this: Jagermonster posted:He didn’t feel the least bit fatigued. Energy coursed through him, from his chest down his torso, bursting through his legs, powering his bike. You're repeating yourself - reduced, this is "Scott was not tired. Scott was energetic." You can pull off repetition if there's a reason for it, or if you're a great poet, but the above is just clunky over-description. Try cutting a bunch of the adjectives and cute phrasing: Jagermonster posted:Scott squinted into the thickening surge of air. Thickening surge, really? And why are you describing adrenaline as "magic mysterious natural jet fuel"? There's a bunch of stuff in here that reads like you wrote something that you thought was clever but doesn't serve the story. Cut harder. Most importantly, you edited your story after you submitted - that's an instant DQ. Sorry dude. Don't do that. If This Story were a GBS Thread, It Would Live On Page: 3. But no matter how hard it tries, it stays there, jealously eyeing the Couch To 5K thread in YLLS. -- Auraboks - It's persecution, that's what it is I'm split on this one. On the one hand, it's a half-decent vignette. On the other hand, the story doesn't seem to know what it's trying to say. Are we talking about the crazy lady and her weird mermaid fetish? Focus on that. Are we talking about how heat makes people see/do crazy things? Focus on that. Are we talking about a man desperate to keep his job who gets confronted with a weird situation? Focus on that. You make a big fuss about the heat, but it doesn't seem to impact the story at all. Same thing with the uniform. Phil comes across quite bland. We don't get much characterization out of him aside from "I am hot, sweaty and needed a job." He doesn't come across as flawed, he's just a strong, authoritative guy in a uniform ordering people out of the pool. That doesn't make for a sympathetic protagonist. If you're telling this from the point of the view of the antagonist, then I still need stronger characterization to figure out why he's a douche. Why is it the best day at his job? Does he just enjoy ruining people's fun? Also, kill your darlings: Auraboks posted:The uniform was really just the lovely icing on the surprise cake of employment. Cute, but distracting. You've go the prompt working in your favor, sure, but this just isn't strong enough to warrant honors. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Live on Page: None. It gets shuttled between Pet Island, D&D and BFC before eventually getting shunted to FYAD, mostly because the mods can't make up their goddamn minds where it fits. -- Kaishai - Sounds and Silences This starts off slow. That's pretty much the harshest thing I can say. The construction bit is obviously inspired by the thread, and I'm guessing the water woman is supposed to be drawn from Germanic nixie mythology. Pity that the actual Norwegian version are the näck and are male water spirits known for their singing - that would've tied the original thread in even better. There's some cliches that I want you to improve. "The engine's growl filled the world" makes me gag.. The writing until the fish-girl is introduced is turgid and thick; there's not much going on to hold my attention; you'd need some fine poetry to make this work. Kaishai posted:"...Yes," David eventually remembered to agree. Come on, you know you should be using a period with that attribution. And the ellipsis does the job of 'eventually' - you could cut the attribution altogether.Kaishai posted:Pale fingers curled around his. Lips met his and breathed air into his lungs. His, his, his. Vary up your phrasing a bit. Punch this up. One thing bothered me the whole way through, and it's summed up here: Kaishai posted:Staying inside as it sank was the easiest thing he'd ever done. Why? Is he actually suicidally in love? I get that there's a deep mad love here, but to the point of suicide? I'm not quite sold on it. He doesn't seem desperate or head-over-heels enough, as established in dialogue and words, for this to make sense. Hell, he falls for the water-girl really swiftly. It could use some more development at the expense of the house-hammering bits. Strong as usual, but not the strongest thing I've seen from you. Worth an honorable mention, but others will probably take the win. If This Were a GBS Thread, It Would Live On Page: 1 for a week, then it sinks slowly into oblivion. -- Capntastic - The New Stuff The nicest thing I can say about this is that you obviously proofread it and ran it through spellcheck. Unlike most other entries, there's no omitted words, serious grammar errors or typos. Unfortunately, we're not a spelling bee, so that won't win you many points. You entire story is two guys chatting on the internet about anime. I didn't actually realize it was anime until halfway through, since I've only been visiting the links after reading the stories. At first I thought "show" referred to a musical act or something. Clarity is key. If I'm going to get invested at all, I need to know what they're arguing about and why it's important. The story definitely fails the second test - what's at stake here? A lovely night of bad weed and torrented TV? C'mon. Two guys arguing is not tension. Hell, why are they IMing each other? What purpose does that device serve? Diving deeper, your prose is clunky as hell. Capntastic posted:He'd sent the link to his friend whose name appeared as "CriminalInTense" on the screen. What the gently caress is that poo poo? "his friend whose name appeared as"? Half the time you're telling me stuff straight-off: Capntastic posted:Dan was content that he'd done his due diligence in showing this new treasure to his friend. Was he now? That's just swell. You have 500 more words to show me something happening instead of telling me about a character's decisions and emotions. Yeah, it's a cliche. Capntastic posted:"Fuuuuck that guy." Criminal had typed. There is seriously no reason for this to be in the past-perfect tense. You could've gone for simple past. Instead I'm getting timing whiplash. He typed that in the past? I mean, sure, but you could just go with standard dialogue attribution. We know he's typing, there's no reason to be pedantic about ping time lag and "had typed" and so on. Well, at least picking a loser is easy this week. If This Story Were a GBS Thread, It Would Live on Page: None. Straight to the gas chamber, bypassing even ADTRW.
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Jul 29, 2013 22:27
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Jagermonster posted:That can't be right. I see people do that all the time. Just checked the OPs. There's nothing written in stone there, but I think there's a general understanding that once you hit submit, you should be pencils-down done. So it's up to the head judge of the week, I suppose. I also noticed that Whalley edited after submitting as well. Forgot to note that. Use the goddamn Preview button, people.
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Jul 29, 2013 23:20
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Besesoth posted:I won't argue with the rest of the crit, but I have to ask: did I misunderstand? No, I was going off the same prompt. Both yours and Whalley's do the same thing, where there's an abrupt reversal of fortune that marks the end of the story. It's the abrupt reversal that we, as readers, expect but that the characters aren't anticipating. It's not an unexpected twist, so it fits the prompt. But it comes off like a bad horror movie "twist" or cliche. I groaned a little when I realized where it was going. It wasn't a huge detriment, but it certainly didn't improve things.
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Jul 29, 2013 23:56
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Martello posted:so like Anathema Device, last I heard, had no electricity and Sitting Here has been disappeared into the hospitality-industrial complex. There's still some debate over the winner, but we should have a verdict later today.
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Jul 30, 2013 10:06
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Sitting Here posted:Ugghhh I know I had an inordinately long amount of time to work on this, but please just bear with me a little bit, I barely physically have time to post due to the corn-fed tide of mouth breathing lunatics who lose their poo poo even harder as soon as they pay money to sleep some place. I'm willing to grant Sitting Here an extension for another day or two. The taste of her own keister will be just that much sweeter for the delay.  Edit: Also, winning by default is lame. I demand legitimacy.
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Jul 30, 2013 23:19
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Aw poo poo. Wasn't planning on entering, but histfic tickles my prairie oysters. In.
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Aug 6, 2013 11:47
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Jesus people, is your reading comprehension as bad as your prose?Fumblemouse posted:We know and we don't care - in the Thunderdome there is only Death or Glory or Crits, there is no self-harm-by-kitten-tongue commentary about how awful you are for totes reals. So post your Hitler fanfic or STFU.
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Aug 7, 2013 09:29
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Frozen Souls (1114 words) “The bodies should be less than a mile— Hold, Will.” Sergeant Baker drew his bayonet. “Did you hear that?” Wind keened through the forest, pines groaned beneath last night’s snow. I shrugged. “The Bolshies aren’t a mile out. Keep an eye peeled—“ A bayonet thrusted from behind a tree, whistling by my ear. It hung from a rifle gripped by a pale man in a brown wool coat. He stared at me, eyes yellowed and shot through with dark veins. Sarge lunged and sank his long, polished blade into the Russian’s throat. The communist gurgled and fell dead, his black blood marring white snow. I stared at the metal spike on the dead man’s rifle. A few inches to the left and it would’ve been inside my brain. The sergeant grabbed the Mosin-Nagant, opened the breach and grunted. “No bullets. At least we’re doing something right up here. Now quit staring like a jay and load him up.” He tossed it away and we loaded the corpse onto my sledge. It was a miracle we even had the thing; it was supposed to be horse-drawn, earmarked for the retreat from Shenkursk, but its horse broke a leg and Sergeant Baker commandeered it for his little recovery mission. A day tramping through the pines was a small sacrifice if four of our boys could spend their eternal rest back in Michigan. I envied them - they were getting out of Russia. Four men dead; Sarge was the only one to make it out. I couldn’t fathom how it felt to lose all his men - worse, to go slushing back for their frozen carcasses. Night crawled towards us and, at last, Sergeant Baker gave up trying to wayfind in dying twilight. We dug into a drift, ate, and slept. I awoke during darkness to something gurgling, like a hungry stomach in the night. I lifted my head, glanced around. The waning moon overhead silvered snow and blackened trees. The sergeant was bundled up, snoring. Our Russian lay dead on the sledge— Dark bile bubbled from his neck-wound, pooling on the snow. I’d never seen anything like it. Then again, I’d never seen anyone without a throat. The goo drained away into the snow, leaving it as pristine-white as ever, and the body lay quiet. I sat awake listening for a long while, sweating despite the cold. The moon dropped beneath the tree-line before I fell back into bad sleep. # I sat up at daybreak and rubbed my eyes. My head throbbed. Probably not enough sleep. The corpse had been rolled off the sledge and the sergeant was pouring kerosene over it from a canteen. “What’re you doing, Sir?” “Changed my mind, Private. He’s useless to us, a burden.” He struck a match and lit the body. “Look away, Will. Good men shouldn’t watch things like this.” My headache was nasty, so I kept my head down, packed my stuff and then we marched on. The night before scratched at my brain until I couldn’t keep silent. “Sir, I have a question.” “Quiet, Private. You never know what’s nearby out here.” “That’s the thing, Sir. That body was still bleeding last night—“ “I’ve been in these woods a year now, Will. There are things out here that Christian men shouldn’t ever see or think about. Put it out of your mind and just thank God it’ll be over soon.” Presently, we emerged into a thicket. Four mounds bulged the snow. The sergeant handed me an entrenching shovel. “Sorry to drag you into this, Will.” “Dig them all up, Sir?” “That’s right.” We exhumed the first, a man wearing a medic’s cross. His veins were blackened, as though ink had frozen beneath his frost-whitened skin. My rifle’s strap chafed my shoulders as I dug. I set it down in the snow. We dug up three more bodies and put them all on the sledge. All throughout, my headache was a war-drum pounding in my skull. I knelt to lash the corpses down. A cold wind burned my eyes and they watered. I wiped them. The body beneath me, like the others, was milk-white with inky veins. One hand splayed across a wound on his breast. Poor guy, a bayonet had pierced his heart. More tears welled up and I wiped them dry. Inky ooze seeped from the man’s broad knife-wound. I froze. The Russian bayonet was long and thin, not wide and narrow. I backed up and bumped into something hard. It grunted. I dove aside and the sergeant’s sharp bayonet crashed into the snow where I’d stood. Baker’s eyes were jaundiced and amethyst ink swam in his pupils. He pounced and sank the blade into my leg. I screamed and pushed him off. “It’ll be over soon, Will. Don’t fight it.” Black bile dripped from the sergeant’s teeth. “Join us.” He lunged for the bayonet. I grabbed my rifle and fired. Baker staggered, then grinned, more ooze dripping from the wound. I shot again and he dropped to his knees; another bullet and he fell facefirst in the snow, twitching and grunting. I crawled to him, pried the kerosene from his belt and doused him. He rolled over, spat up foul black oil and reached for me. “Become us…” I struck a match and he disappeared beneath flames, writhing and screaming. I crawled to the sledge as red blood leaked from my leg. I pulled the knife from my thigh and sliced strips off the medic’s coat, tied them over my wound and prayed to God for the strength to hobble home. I stood and white pain seared my nerves. I pushed my rifle’s muzzle into the snow for support and took a step. Something gurgled. More oil bubbled from the bodies on the sledge. It was breeding in them, multiplying. Baker had wanted to drag them back to the Army. Back to the evac line where there’d be a hundred corpses. I swallowed hard. I had to do it. I had to burn them. Poor guys. I emptied the kerosene onto them, struck a match, prayed and lit them. My head and thigh were aflame with pain, pain which burned hotter each minute. I couldn’t wait for their ashes; I had go now, before my wound hurt too bad to walk. I trudged back along our tracks, using my rifle as a cane. It was slow going and the Russian day was short. At dusk, I collapsed against a tree. I took out the sergeant’s bayonet and scraped away dried blood. The polished knife flashed in the dying light. In its reflection, my eyes were yellow and purple.
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Aug 12, 2013 01:44
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sebmojo posted:Story fight, then. Y'all need a judge? I got your back.
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Aug 16, 2013 12:54
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Fumblemouse posted:Agreed. Time to use your words, benighted one. Someone prompt us up (but keep the word count low for the love of all that's tentacular, I got minions to manage at the moment and those little ragamuffins are time intensive). Thunderbrawl: Fumblemouse v. Sebmojo Word Count: 750 words Deadline: Saturday the 25th, 23:59:59 UTC+0 As you're both feeling pugnacious after an ichorous week grading horror: write punctilious prose about a person whose life is deeply changed by a blood sport, real or invented. Focus on the emotion and the changes wrought by the character's relationship with the sport. What draws the character in? How does it change them? Are the changes for better or worse? Focus on character development, not gore.
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Aug 16, 2013 14:18
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