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Thunderdome Archive We've done a lot of weeks of Thunderdome, which can be a little overwhelming to keep track of. Enter the archive, which makes a robot keep track of everything so you don't have to. His name is TdBot, he is a creep, and we hate him. The archive is a repository of the thread's weekly entries, brawls, and even interprompts. In addition we track judges and has done their obligatory and extra story crits. There are statistics for all sorts of interesting things like author wordcounts, entries and more! If you're thinking "I wonder how many..." then it's probably already there somewhere. Even I forget how to find things. The Archive is by INVITE ONLY, and the only way to earn an invitation is by spilling blood in the dome. Do not ask for an account if you have not participated in at least one week. Overall Records:   Your Profile Each Thunderdome contestant gets their own author summary page (e.g. here's mine). On your own profile you can change the privacy of your stories (set them to hidden) and mark your favorites. You can also use the archive exporter to build a fancy PDF to send to your mom.  TdBot TdBot not only looks after the archive, but he can pull information from it at will, which he uses to serve as the oracle of Thunderdome in his discord channel. Pop in and have a conversation with him, where he'll use your own bad words to make you regret speaking to him! Team Archive None of this would be possible without the help of Team Archive. Kaishai: Archivist Emeritus Sitting Here: Entry Enchantress Mocking Quantum: Crit Counter Yoruichi: Brawl Master + others who have given their time to trawling the thread and checking for accuracy, of which there are dozens. Patreon In addition, several people give REAL LIFE DOLLARS to keep the archive up and running and enable us to do things like the weekly recap podcast, so a huge shoutout and thanks to these fine domers! All the levels have the same rewards because of space socialism. Any donation gives you this cool wizard hat on the archives:  Errors & Feature Request PM me on discord or SA and we'll get it fixed or see if it's possible to do. No we will not archive crits. Do it yourself. crabrock fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Jan 4, 2021 |
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Jan 1, 2021 02:00
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Pththya-lyi posted:Interprompt: New Year's Resolutions Gone Wrong BSE 400 Words Ok, I’m not gonna lie: that whole Christmas Carol thing where I saw a future version of me, but with all the chains and spooky stuff really made me rethink my policy of injecting spiders with my soon-to-hatch-eggs. I’ve turned over a new leaf, honest. Just today I watched like three spiders go by, and I didn’t stab any of them with my admittedly impressive stinger. I don’t want my kids to grow up in a world where that kind of thing is acceptable. Where some pervert could be sitting on the edge of a bird bath taunting sparrows and then all of a sudden, bam, they’re on you pumping like a two-stroke motor. It’s disgusting, probably, being on the other side of that. I didn’t get it before, because I was too busy ambushing and pumping to listen to reason. But man, when that ghost wasp was rattling around and being like “ooo look at that dead bug!” and I did, and it was gross, all shriveled up. And all the spiders, depraved souls, they were glad the bug was dead. Now I’ve killed a lot of spiders in my day, sure, but I’ve never celebrated the death itself, only the thrill of the competition. It makes me sick to see any bug a dried out husk like that. And then the ghost says “take a closer look” so I do and gently caress, it’s me! Dessicated from round after round of jackhammering away on spiders with this rock-hard beauty. So yeah, I’ve got some resolutions. I’m gonna be a better wasp, get back to basics. No more poking holes in peoples’ masks, no more hiding under car door handles and tickling their little fingers, no more pulverising a spider’s abdomen with my phenomenally pneumatic ovipositor. I’m going to be a more tender, caring wasp. I’m going to make an effort to get to know the spiders. Find out their hopes and dreams. Inquire about their childhood, ya know. Ask them if they’ve eaten any good crickets lately, that sort of stuff. Really butter them up, get them glowing, then, when the moment is just right, when they’re good and ready, gently slip it in. I’ll hold one leg up to their mouth and say “Shhh, it’s a beautiful thing.” And as if on cue, look at that lanky octoped. Time to go be the better version of myself.
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Jan 5, 2021 07:38
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in. i don't need a flash rule but can i have a horse gif anyway?
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Jan 15, 2021 11:40
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My Favorite Mistake 899 words Larry made his billions by mistakenly putting his entire life savings into the wrong stock, which Forbes had described as “the most boring way to get rich.” He vowed to make up for it by using his fortune to make the world a more interesting place. He invested in the eccentric, his portfolio a menagerie of strange and impractical: a project determined to alter the trajectory of the current timeline by raising and releasing swarms of butterflies, a metamaterial so fragile it would shatter if gazed upon, a fruit so delicious it had spurred a man into dedicating his life to bringing it to life though he only tasted it in a dream. The more far fetched the premise, the greater Larry’ desire to invest in it. This is how he came to be covered head to toe in a crisp jumpsuit, nitrile gloves, and comically large safety goggles standing next to a vat of milky goo in the converted-hangar labs of Centaurs Inc. Dr. Lemonz rolled out a tall cart with a CRT television strapped to the top. Three wheels squeaked while the fourth simply spun in every direction at once on the long journey across the expanse of concrete. He stopped in front of Larry and the three other investors, smiled, and pushed the instructional video into the VCR. It clicked a few times then whined as it spun up and spit a magenta image onto the screen. “GREETINGS!” said a man who walked into frame. The gathered VIPs covered their ears as the scientist mashed the volume down button, his Einsteinesque hair flapping on top of his head in rhythm to the man’s fingers smashing the VCR. “Centaurs!” the TV man continued at a more reasonable volume. “Fascinating, noble creatures.” The image starwiped to a field of Centaurs, some trotting around the perimeter, others engaged in spirited conversations. The screen flashed back the presenter who had been unceremoniously joined by a child. “Gee mister, centaurs are neat, but what about the other way?” said the boy. “You know, with the horse half on the top.” “Ha!” said the man. “The typical limitations of a child’s mind. Like our hard-working team at Centaurs Inc. hadn’t done that the minute they’d made the other kind.” The video showed a pair of human legs barely supporting the heft of a horse torso and head run into a fence. “Try harder.” The boy frowned. “Ok, well what about a human quarter on the top, then half horse middle, and a quarter human on the bottom?” “Pedestrian and unimaginative. Did it!” The video showed a man’s head look down at his hairy horse nipples, his blurred-out horse dong and his skinny little human calves and feet. “What about--” The man held up his hand. “Quiet, child. There’s nothing you can think of we haven’t already done and regretted. We ran out of ways to combine horse and human DNA, so we figured, heck! Why not let a professional have a go. And that seasoned geneticist is none other than Mother Nature herself.” The man walked up to a chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk. “With the backing of illustrious investors, we’ve devised a system where horse and human genes can be combined at random.” He drew some twirly figures that didn’t help Larry understand at all how it worked. “With the push of a button you have a complete 50-50 rearrangement of all 40,000 horse and human alleles without any a priori biases or hypotheses. Just pure, unadulterated centaur magic. And combined with our patented QuickDevo Hydrogel, they’re ready in just a few minutes, reminding us all that there are no such things as mistakes, only happy little accidents.” The man in the video walked back over to where he’d left the boy and held out a slice of apple on his open palm. The boy’s lips peeled back to reveal his large, flat teeth as he leaned forward and licked the apple from the man’s hand. The man winked, and the screen went dark.” Larry and the other investors applauded politely. “Who wants to be the first to push the button and develop their own, unique centaur?” Larry shrugged and sheepishly raised his hand. He stepped up to the big red button and pushed it, sending a jolt of electricity into the goo and triggering the DNA crossover. The pool bubbled and burped, and thirty seconds later a platform raised the dripping wet form of the nascent yet precocial horse-human hybrid into the air. She blinked her black horse eyes and scratched at her human nose with her hooves. Her small human heart pumped her horse blood to her horse muscles which rippled under her smooth human skin. The scientist studied the computer screen. “EEG reads human imagination, but a horse startle response. The scan indicates she’d have great balance, but be a terrible procrastinator and day dreamer.” Larry looked into her horse eyes and felt a vulnerable soul. He wanted to protect her, to comfort her. He reached out to offer her his hand, but clumsily knocked the button pedestal into the pool. The sudden motion spooked her, and she jumped out and ran across the hangar on two legs, swatting at the other scientists with her hooved arms. She winnied and bucked past the guards and ran for the open hangar door to freedom.
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Jan 18, 2021 11:01
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in, give flash, bash fash
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Jan 19, 2021 22:24
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toanoradian posted:gently caress
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Feb 3, 2021 09:38
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Casual Encountess posted:i’m new here and i’m in 
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Feb 5, 2021 00:43
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curlingiron posted:Here is Puddle, she is a special lady. gently caress. in.
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Feb 5, 2021 04:47
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curlingiron posted:Here is Puddle, she is a special lady. harder better faster deeper 735 words Like a flower, you’ll first find me after a spring rain. The little pitter patter of raindrops on the hoods of cars turns to little rivulets that run down the radiator and tires and onto the asphalt. Water trickles in when I’m no bigger than a single misplaced rock, but soon my roots take hold and I grow. It can take years, but I’ll eventually sprout into a respectable hole, filled to the brim with murky water. Not big enough to cause any trouble, at first, the kind that can barely be noticed as I’m driven over and the little splash barely reaches out from under the wheel, but all the while I dig deeper into the earth, biding my time. The underlayer of gravel and rocks melt away. On the dry days I don’t seem that deep: a few inches is all. Not enough to cause any alarm. Yeah sure every now and then somebody will swerve, but most don’t. “Somebody should fix that,” they’ll mutter after hitting me for the second day in a row, but they won’t call me in. And so every time it rains I fill up, I run over, and I seep toward the bedrock. And then I bloom. On the surface I still look unassuming, but below I’m a slurry of sand and water that reaches down to the ancient aquifers. An overworked parent only needs to turn their back for a second to unload their minivan for me to catch the eye of a curious kid. “Go ahead, jump in me,” I croon in that silent song only children hear, and they waddle toward me with a mischievous glint in their eye. But I don’t wanna talk about drowned toddlers. Truth is, grabbing a hold of their little ankles and dragging them down into the depths is nothing like it can be... like it used to be. I could spend days straight plucking those little tots from willow-lined cul-de-sacs and never even get close to the impact of swallowing up a single hapless school bus. I have a brother in Singapore that got a whole market. Stalls, sandals, some goats and even a few tourists amongst the locals. They still feed him the occasional drone or camera on a string, trying in vain to see how deep he goes. It’s hard to live up to that kind of competition. And what kind of offering to the eldritch gods are the miniscule bones of a half-formed human compared to even a single femur of a stegosaurus? We used to feast on the richness of the Earth, swallowing up whole herds of giant lizards, inky blackness reaching out of our confines and catching unaware passersby. Then they ruined everything. Paved over us, diverted runoff to the oceans instead of letting it permeate the ground. They even have special crews that will come and fill us up at the slightest inconvenience. I should feel lucky to even get a kid these days, so many of my brothers are starving. But it’s hard to celebrate mediocrity; there’s no joy in being the only wilted rose in a vase of dead weeds. Though the little monkeys are our enemy, we’re also kin in a way. Like them, I look up at the stars and dream. Out there are puddles that swallow entire planets. What gifts the gods would bestow upon me if I could unlock those secrets. I’d swallow this entire planet without hesitation if I could. Then I’d keep going. I’d get that moon of theirs too, and then their precious sun until I’d gobbled up all the light and warmth they’d ever known. Their little wheelbarrows and shovels and cement wouldn’t feel so comforting then, would they? The air has a certain freshness to it after it rains. They’ll venture outside after being trapped inside for days, adorned in slick plastic and bright boots. Go for little walks to the corner store or just around in circles only to end up back where they started. Sometimes they stop on the sidewalk and take a deep breath and smile. They don’t even see me beginning beneath a fallen leaf, but I’m already at work. It’s not drawing any helicopter news crews or being sung about in the ancient tongue, but gotta start somewhere. Until I’m ready to consume galaxies, this street will have to do.
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Feb 8, 2021 08:50
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ok sure Week 446 talking talking talking crits I’m not gonna read any of the flash rules or pay attention to the changing word count poo poo because i’m not head judge and i don’t wanna ------------------ Simply Simon Hospitality “why when he morning light” “His headache got worse every second” sdt “He - had - forgotten - to - get - another - argh!” ??? “The blue one wanted to say something” head jumping ““We are the Mighty M-” COPYRIGHT DODGE. “Green, however, failed to see the humor in the situation.” sdt He smushed the black one in february tsk tsk. The dialog in this one is just kind of utilitarian and doesn’t do much except for describe the plot / actions / motivations and what not. Not a ton of deep characterization coming in here. I don’t really “get” this power rangers fanfic? -------------- Brotherly Haunted Theater Good setup. ““Where I come from” he doesn’t want to say where he comes from and changes the subject, but then brings it up. That’s not very consistent. This is a good setup with not really a lot of answers. Like jj abrams directed this story. I think maybe you had them in your head but they’re not clear to me. Like you said he’s a bot? But i don’t really understand what is going on or where he is, or what he had done “before.” without knowing any of that, or who this dude is, the ending doesn’t really do anything to me. All this confusion doesn’t feel anything like love to me. ---------------- Nae The Traveling Sommelier “reminds Amy of the inside of a coffin.” is this a memory she has? “ You could stand to relax a little.” He rubs her shoulders. “ uh poo poo’s gettin creepy in here I feel like to understand this story i need to have information i do not have. It does a decent job at setting a creepy, otherworldly tone, but i’m not sure what is going on and who these characters are. I’m assuming some sort of legend/monster or something that i’m not familiar with. Without that knowledge, this story is meh and i get no answers to what the creepyness is or why she felt weird. ----------------- nut Boogie Woogie Man, cut out all this starting chaff and get to the good stuff. “How could a plate of nachos be ‘Boogie Woogie’?” lol “What is mutton?” a common trap of dialog-heavy stories is to have one character just ask questions. This is pretty boring to read, turns out. Try to avoid it. “My feet are getting numb.” ??? “She loved (more than half)” how are these parentheticals being handled in this speech? I’m a little confused. Are they muttering it under their breath? ““Entomology and fair.” ??? This story didn’t have to be 100% dialog u know. It gets a little boring after just reading back and forth forever. The cuteness wears off. ““Calm down, just breathe.” “I can’t, my pelvis--” “You don’t breathe through your pelvis.” lol The reveal is ok but this story would be a billion times better with some actual exposition and description and what not. Would feel a bit more natural. Anyway this was decent and i laughed a few times and some of this dialog would fit very well into a story with a bit more boogie woogie on its bones. nut hosed around with this message at 6:12 PM on Feb 20, 2021 uh oh. We don’t do that around here. A little buzzed i almost just signed this crit with my work signature -------- a friendly penguin Hi! Wiped Out “how can I do all of my rad tricks” i’m not 100% sure where this story lies on the spectrum of “serious” to “a mockery of the late 90s” “Someone put the new Rage album up on Napster “ he’d have time to go to the police station and get back and only be like half done downloading the album :P Lands a little too much on the “mockery” side of things, tho i don’t think it was supposed to. Feels a bit forced. All their dialog is kinda just about doing tricks and appreciating life and trying to do chicks, not really much behind it other than what’s on the surface. A real “this is what i’m doing and thinking” conversation. ----------------- Sperglord Firecock Well that sure is a username Mess I uh, don’t really know what is happening here. Seems like 2 dudes concerned more with sounding real smart and patting themselves on the back about it rather than like, having anything interesting to say. --------------------- toanoradian Fruits Outside Heaven “. I am Fruitiel, an angel responsible “ WHAT IS HAPPENING You’re doing the nut thing and not including any exposition, but i like the beginning where you described some things. Describe some more things. “Thanks for the help, lizard! “ judge pandering. Well, you attempted something, so you got that going for you. I think that maybe you just kinda wrote this without knowing where it was going, and just kinda followed along for the ride. Oh well, at least i wasn’t bored reading it. ------------------ flerp so we keep on burning “Hey,” it asks, what’s with people starting their stories with “hey” this week? Fluff…...booo I get the feeling you are v cold right now. This has some good lines in it but in the end is just kinda a whimsical vignette. The characterization is p dece on the guy, but pretty lacking on the sun. why is the sun talking to him and what not? Anyway thanks for including some description between the words. Oops i almost signed it again. --------------- BB2K Is this a star wars thing? Blinding Lights You have 4 repetitions of “WORDS” / “QUESTION?” over and over god i hate that Oh boy you did the thing with no description too just words from a void. A faceless void who i don’t know and just is talking at me and trying to impress me with I AM VERY DEEP WHIMSICAL OBSERVATION Rational question “ two or three less coffees” fewer This dude is talking to a therapist or something? Who knows I loving hate joe what a waste of space i hop e he dies. ------------------- curlingiron Hi! MAN vs MACHINE: Elite Champion Ultra Belt Match, only on Pay-Per-View Nooooo u also did the thing “Well One, as you can probably tell, there’s a lot of excitement for the big match tonight. “ WE HAVE TO TELL THE READER WHAT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OTHER WORDS Rawbott more like rawbutt The parts with the cowboy talkin poo poo were good and that should have been more of your story, with some, you know, actual good words instead of two robots telling me the rest of the story. Like literally if you took their dialog and just made it exposition it wouldn’t really change the story because they don’t have any personality or reason for talking, they’re just relaying information. Big floppy dudddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd ----------------------- Yoruichi Une Conversation Avec Mon Père Oh gently caress, french! “It would look good in your house.” “My flat, you mean,” See people this is what writing dialog is. A fuckin sword fight with words where you don’t just say “BUT DAD, I’M TOO POOR TO OWN A HOUSE BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPID BOOMER POLICIES” you just imply it. ““How’s your brother?” he said. Surely you meant to say “BUT MY DAD’S MIND IS GOING OUT SO HE ASKS ME AGAIN HOW MY BROTHER IS, BECAUSE HE GOT BAD BRAINS BECAUSE HE’S OLD” “The little poo poo is just too lazy to come help his old man.” lol excellent I don’t think hennessy is cognac I WAS WRONG OK Thank u finally a story this week. I see why your stupid horse face keeps winning this year. ------------------------- Thranguy Oh boy, maybe we can make it two in a row Absent Friends I WAS BUSY "Jesus," I said. “ the only thing is i’m having a bit of trouble keeping these two dudes straight. They’re p much the same voice. Also with the back and forth i think maybe you got off? Oh wait nm you just mixed your actions with dialog of Aces, which is a big no no man. Got me all confuzzled n't know?" I shook my head. "Oh, Quinn. You've got to hear this." “moved all the way to Boston.” mistake. Also i’m not sure where this story is taking place. This got some good dialog but needs a bit more detail and boogie woogie on its bones to really land and knock yoriuchiui down from hir throne that she’s on right now. It’s relying on a few too many cliches to prop itself up right now. I don’t know much about these two’s past, and i’d like to know more. I appreciate what’s here, but mourn what isnt ------------------------ CaligulaKangaroo Mumbai on the Beacon WTBU, Boston University WHY IS BOSTON KEEP COMING AT ME LIKE THIS, LEAVE ME ALONE, BOSTON “the language of the sitar through the dialect of the ukulele.” thanks i hate it. These two characters are insufferable and i hate them i hope they break up. This story gimmick (radio transcription) is pretty bleh and i’d liek this better as a regular story with like, descriptions and poo poo. It’s literally all telling this way. WHY DO I KEEP ALMOST SIGNING MY NAME ------------------------ Simbyotic Matter and antimatter Uhhhhhhhhhhhh only dialog AND question response question response pleassssssssssse stop “next to a pile of your own vomit” that’s saving some for later  I’m pregnant. abort I hate these people. -------------- Chairchucker Sheer Force of Will ““Yeah. Like. Through sheer force of will, cause it to fill up with treats.”” oh poo poo i’m gonna try that ““Ah, like last year when she made it rain.”” lol. “Mind must’ve wondered.” wandered? Haha well, i was actually quite enjoying this until the portal thing. But it’s still fun but it was better before. Thank you for including some words of not dialog at least. ------------------------------- Hawklad Marianna So like, two dudes or ladies or whatever are just pointing guns at each other and then they stab each other instead? I just can’t right now sorry ---------------- Sparksbloom Masshole loving BOSTON LEAVE ME ALONE I’M TIRED Peak boston of the night i hope I don’t really know who is doing what in this story. Are they just chillin in a triple decker or something? Is a college kid banging some high schooler? Wtf is happing ------------------- Idle Amalgam Hero of the Horde Like warcraft “ Klilb affixed his garb.” this made me barf “ Back to the skins and salts” everybody is drunk this weekend Holy gently caress i didn’t care about this at ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL -------------------- Pththya-lyi Snow Woman What. is he banging a snow ghost? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mzJzTiacBc ---------------- sebmojo Sea birds Short and sweet but ultimately more of the former than the latter. shame. --------- Overall for the week: TOO MUCH TALKIN, NOT ENOUGH SHOWIN. Two people talking in a vacuum is pretty loving boring. That’s why movies got pictures and poo poo instead of just a black screen. It’s not really a story without some you know, story poo poo. It’s just a podcast. Great guys, you loving reinvented the podcast. Quick, somebody pitch this to a silicon valley VC Anyway there were like 2 good stories that were mostly dialog BUT NOT ONLY DIALOG and had some good poo poo in them, the rest of you just took a fat dump on my computer monitor and ruined my sunday evening fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you Also i just wanna say i hate boston still and i hope it falls into the sea
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Feb 23, 2021 04:18
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in, bay of bones
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Feb 23, 2021 19:19
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Hawklad posted:Ya know, this garbage-tier poo poo has been stuck in my craw all week. I know that nuance and complexity isn't exactly your strong suit (obviously your skills lie more in the "failure to submit" area), but this was not a complicated scene and the fact that your flaccid brain wasn't able to wraps its little mind-tendrils around it speaks to your laziness rather than any shortcomings in my writing (as garbage-tier as it may be). I just can't let this low effort poo poo go by unchallenged. this is both an accurate statement and a waste of my time, much like your story was. you'll wish i failed to submit when i'm done with you. brawl challege accepted. 
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Feb 27, 2021 02:50
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content warning: don't read this thnx Forever Young 1290 words https://thunderdome.cc/?story=9600&title=Forever+Young crabrock fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Dec 6, 2021 |
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Mar 1, 2021 08:21
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Thunderdome Week 448: Idiotisms and Proverbs and a Living Hell Once upon a time, a man named Senhor Pedro Carolino wrote a book: New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English. It was "written with serious intent, and for the purpose of initiating Portuguese students into the mysteries of the English language." The only catch? He didn't speak English. Instead he used French/English dictionaries and translated from Portuguese to French to English. What resulted was a hilarious mishmash of awkward phrases that make almost no sense at all, and is definitely not an effective way to learn English phrases. So that'll be fun. But we're not done yet. Sure picking a silly phrase and writing a silly story is fun, but it's also not what I need right now. This week, I want to cause pain. I want your characters to loving bleeeeed. In addition to choosing an "idiotism and proverb" you will be writing a story that does not have a happy ending. Things are not wrapped up nicely, this is not an afterschool special. poo poo is hosed, man. Your characters are loving doomed. There is more suffering in life than death, so your character(s) also cannot die at the end. You are going to ruin these fuckers. Just because it isn't a happy ending doesn't mean you don't need to wrap things up, so please actually write an ending that feels like it stems from the events in your story. and writing a bad person getting their comeuppance counts as a happy ending, so i want to feel these characters pain, i want to feel bad for them, i want to suffer alongside them. so to recap: 1. Pick a line from this list for loosely interpreted inspiration: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/English_As_She_Is_Spoke/Idiotisms_and_Proverbs (duplicates are ok i don't really care) 2. Write a story without a happy ending 3. No character death 4. Only likable characters 5. Write a complete story I also got poo poo to do, so short week this week, submissions close SUNDAY MORNING. not night. morning. Signup deadline: Friday, Feb 4, midnight PST Submission deadline: Sunday Feb 7, 8am PST Word Limit: 1,800 words No: poetry, fanfic, erotica, google docs, happy endings, character deaths, unlikable characters, giving us blue balls Judges: crabrock sebmojo sparksbloom Sadists: 01. Sperglord Firecock - to force to forge, becomes smith 02. Thranguy - A bad arrangement is better than a process 03. Baneling Butts - He is not so devil as he is black 04. Morning Bell - It is better be single as a bad company 05. Noah - To build castles in Espagnish 06. brotherly - The stone as roll not heap up not foam 07. Azza Bamboo - He has fond the knuckle of the business 08. crimea - It is better be single as a bad company 09. Sitting Here - So much go the jar to spring that at last it break there 10. Simply Simon - It is better be single as a bad company 11. Antivehicular - Friendship of a child is water into a basket crabrock fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 3, 2021 04:11
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sign ups are closed now, late. looking forward to reading your disappointing stories tomorrow.
crabrock fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Mar 6, 2021 |
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Mar 6, 2021 23:13
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Yoruichi posted:Christ Allfuckingmightly I hope you're happy now. Almost always thank you for caring!
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Mar 7, 2021 08:27
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submissions closed for realsies this time
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Mar 7, 2021 19:29
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yeah thanks, Gorka, awesome info. week 448 results - I'm just happy you're unhappy i asked y'all to step outside your comfort zone and write a story with an unhappy ending, something we all explicitly try not to do almost all the other times. even if you're gonna end sad, you want something bitter sweet. somebody usually ends up happy. but i asked you to push that aside and give me hopelessness. Azza Bamboo, what the gently caress? Like, I didn't assign you that knuckles quote, i don't know why you got stuck on the Sonic fanfic. To make matters worse, none of us had any idea what the hell was happening even in this story. I'm still not sure what went into your decision process to pick this quote, write this fanfic, and then post it super early. You eat a nice fat Loss. Baneling Butts, you decided to have maybe the most unlikable character this week just tell about a bunch of events and the judges found it overall boring and weird, and your character was a major dick. We didn't feel bad that bad things happened to him, so you get the sole Dishonorable Mention of the week for barely escaping the loss yourself. Yoruichi. your story was great. your entrance was great. your chutzpah was great. pretty much everything about this owned, but this isn't the week that an ugly duckling becomes a beautiful princess, this is the week for unhappy endings, and yours is a nice DQ when you should have so much more. that sucks. the universe sucks. On the happier (well, unhappier) side of the coin we had two stories that really captured likable people just down on their luck and making lovely decisions. Morning Bell, despite your super sloppy proofing and sometimes awkward voice, you set up a pretty clear goal and then ran over it with a car. Your character was doing something lovely when this happened, but his dad not getting the fridge was real sad and hosed up, so good job. Antivehicular made me relive my childhood past of being a perpetually shy, perennially crushing young person and reminded us that young love often doesn't work out, but overall seems like her char will grow up and be fine. HMs to the both of ya. Your winner this week was the only one that made us all honestly unhappy. Sitting Here wrote a story that set up this awful situation and you knew it was coming, then at the last minute she ripped even that certainty away from us, leaving us feeling utterly unsatisfied and upset, which is what I asked y'all for. She wins because jesus christ, i was legit sad after reading that. Enjoy the throne, remember you got it by literally being a miserable sack of disappointing poo poo.
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Mar 8, 2021 06:31
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crits If i write “none” for live thoughts that’s a good thing, it means i didn’t stop from reading your story to make a note of anything, not that i wasn’t thinking anything :P ----- Azza Bamboo You Won't Be Alone. Live thoughts: very telly opening. “Centeredness and assertiveness; those are the two words Anna has picked up from her popular psychology.” i’m not sure if this line is supposed to be mocking. "As if I would want to talk to any of you losers!" is this guy like 12? “Even Anna admits that this is highly suspicious. In agreeing with them, she finds herself rushed into Thomas’ biplane with the others. On disembarking at the courtyards of Robotticus’ flying manor, she asks, “do we even have a plan?” this is a hell of a transition and a bit whiplash. She literally goes to wondering to getting in a plane and then landing on a flying ship without so much of any fanfare, which is a shame. ““Oh no,” says Karl. “Who was that?” says Anna, mouth agape. Stuff like this seems like you’re not even trying. The kind of “not trying” that allows you to say “well i didn’t really try” to protect yourself when you get a bad reception. Why are you doing this? End thoughts: So i think this is sonic the hedgehog fanfic, but i don’t recognize any of the characters besides the bad guy. You often sound like you’re mocking your own character(s) and making them shallow and stupid. The kind of cardboard cutout doucheyness of the three layabouts didn’t really do anybody justice either. I’m wondering why you went for such a detached sort of dislike of your own characters. Most of the lines sound pretty infantile, this reads a lot like somebody playing with action figures and just kind of making up a story along the way, loosely aping the plot of something they’d already watched but couldn’t remember any of the lines to. I’m not sure where the story is supposed to be grounded, i.e. who is the protagonist? It starts with the prof, which is ok, he defines a clear goal/obstacle to that goal, then you do a hard 90 degree turn to focusing on Anna, who you seem to not like very much. She doesn’t really have a goal other than to not want to watch TV all day? All of her wants seem to be spur of the moment, and nobody really respects her for them. The whole clone business was just ??? why was that there? It does nothing. Then the very end is just her thinking back on a joke, you didn’t even show me this as it was happening… wtf. I’m not really sure what the heck happened. You’d have been better sticking to just the prof trying and failing to get a robot to talk to him. The other stuff just seemed… like a toy commercial? Not 100% sure why you wrote this or what you hoped for me to get from it? Rubric: 1. Line? I mean yeah i guess you saw “knuckle” and thought “sonic fanfic” so ok 2. Unhappy? I dunno, it felt kinda exactly like a video game plot. The good guys won, the bad guy lost, and also Anna was there. A clone of herself she never knew existed died after 0 screen time and then she meditates on a beach about it? 3. Alive? I mean, clone anna died? So did a lot of robots? But all the main chars seem alive. 4. Likable? I didn’t really like any of them, and thus don’t care about them? 5. Ended? Not really, this just kinda meanders and doesn’t really do a good job of setting a clear end condition. ----- crimea Little Machine Live thoughts: getting strong 17776 vibes from this. End thoughts: this has been done before, i’m guessing these are the voyager probes sent out? Or at least two similar ones. Anyway it’s not terrible, i do like the thought, but there’s nothing super revolutionary here, one probe outliving its creators and wondering if it’s alone and will see its friend/lover again. But i didn’t hate reading it. I feel the ending where it got a message back was the weakest part. I think it would have been stronger and more heartbreaking with no response, no acknowledgement. Closure is its own sort of satisfaction. Rubric: 1. Line? yeah 2. Unhappy? yeah 3. Alive? yeah 4. Likable? yeah 5. Ended? yeah ----- Yoruichi My Fault You bastard. Live thoughts: “We had fought in whispers” ha. Been there. “ My sensible shoes clip-clop “ IT’S A HORSE! Oh i shoulda kept reading lol. “Like the horse I’d killed.” oh good well this got a little less tragic at least, just a dumb horse. “Except for the dead horse. Of course, of course.” lol. (kill your darlings). End thoughts: You set up a great dilemma. Tell the truth, possibly go to jail and miss all those bedtime stories. Lie, and get to spend the time with your girls. Tell the truth, as you so badly want to do, and you might not even get in that much trouble. Lie, and have to live with that guilt your whole life. It’s a good one, and without a real, definitive answer, so you’re kinda hosed if you do, hosed if you don’t. I like that. In the end, she does choose to be truthful, and i feel that does let a certain weight off her shoulders. Since i don’t know what kind of consequences she will face, i don’t know how truly unhappy of an ending this is. Possible she gets a very light sentence and is then happy she told the truth? Rubric: 1. Line? Sure i guess, if making her nest is kinda like making her bed and lying in it. 2. Unhappy? Kinda. It’s poo poo either way. 3. Alive? Except that horse 4. Likiable? yeah 5. Ended? yeah ----- fishception Sign On Live thoughts: setup is good, but can’t help wondering how he got a job so easy if they’re in such high demand. “and saw something” learning to get rid of these types of things will take your writing to the next level. Describe exactly what he saw, even he’s not sure. Something can be anything, but he saw something, was it a dark smudge? A glimmer of light? A face? Even if you want to maintain mystery and unsuredness, you can still squeeze detail into your story, don’t settle for “someone” or “something” or “for some reason” ever. Oh, and then your next sentence kinda covers it, which is why editing is important! Get rid of the “something” entirely, it’s unnecessary. Then spend a bit of time on it. Did it move? Did it vanish? Did the guy go away too fast and the character convince himself he’d actually seen nothin? Definitely feel like you’re setting something up here, but you basically went ‘AND THEN AN ALIEN CAME OUT OF THE MINE AND I SAW IT ON MY FRIEND. ANYWAY, ME AND THE BOYS…” “At one point Kal stopped screaming” not quite clear, is this line saying he died? “forming into a box with a speaker on it.” this is a bit of a jarring deviation from the mood you’ve created. From mechanical/biological to “electronic.” i don’t really have a good idea of what this thing is or looks like, so i just kinda imagined a bluetooth speaker, which wasn’t the best. “His eyes widened in terror.” this is one of those telly bits that serve as a great opportunity to do some world building and characterization. A sludge just came out of his throat, really get in those weeds and don’t just give me a boring cliche. I can’t really keep all your characters straight, they just about all fill the same role of “dude working in a foundry.” you’ve done some light characterization on them, but because they don’t get much time to speak and really make themselves known, it’s hard to remember who is who. In a short story like this, it’s difficult to get to know more than a few characters, and you have main, boss, a bunch of guys, military people, etc. i know you said you hope to make this part of a larger world, where it might work better to have all these dudes, but in a short story you could probably condense them all down to one other guy. Did this dude jump onto a piece of molten steel to fuse with it? End thoughts: You set a great mood here of this foundry that becomes otherworldly and starts falling apart internally, though nobody seems to really mind. There is a LOT here to unpack and work with, but you skim over a lot of stuff. You describe a ton of actions/plot/sequences, but hardly any of how this character actually feels or reacts to these things. Actually, hardly anybody in your story reacts, they all just kinda of trudge along like “yup, this is how it’s supposed to happen.” which is a kind of horror in itself, but you need to spend some time then on why they’re not reacting and their own kinda amazement at it. A lot of small missed opportunities to flesh some things out, but it’s probably better to engender thoughts of “this needed more” than “get rid of what you have.” Rubric: 1. Line? Very much 2. Unhappy? Not sure about this. His goal was to work and avoid the war. He didn’t really avoid the war, but he did work, and i’m not sure what the ending entailed. I’m not really sure how your character felt about most of the stuff happening around him, so it’s hard to say he was unhappy about it, he seemed pretty ok with it, and even sounds like he willingly laid on the steel and found it to be warm and comforting. 3. Alive? I don’t think so? Not sure. 4. Likable? Eh, he was ok, I didn’t really get to know him that much. 5. Ended? yeah ----- Baneling Butts Transcript of Professor John Reckitt's speech in Stockholm, Sweden Live thoughts: what’s with this professor theme this week? You guys panderin’? Not gonna lie, not a huge fan of this transcript thing. I can’t help but wonder… why? “I know, I know. To be fair, I didn't know he was the devil, at first. In fact” I know this is a speech transcript, but man, tighten up your writing by getting rid of all the extra crap. “I didn’t know he was the devil” is a fine and dandy statement on its own, and all the extra fluff is just that. It doesn’t create a good mood or anything, it just wastes my time. “Anyway,” you do this a few times. I know your character is giving a speech on the fly, just talking, but man these little digressions hurt more than do anything good for your story. “while I lived in the hotel. Somehow I got accepted to the best one” what you’ve written here is that he got accepted into the best hotel when what I think you meant to talk about was his getting accepted into a university. “I moved to Boston,” I FEEL ATTACKED. I’m to the part where he’s getting good grades and poo poo and i’m thinking “man, i don’t want to read a rambling series of events where he becomes a nobel prize winning scientist super easily and boringly.” so if you don’t deviate from that right quick then you’re gonna earn a big ol’ yawn from me. “so I applied for PhD programs” this is the correct way to procrastinate life. “"I don't belong here." But I decided to fake it.” don’t doxx me. “What sort of angel gives success but not happiness?” well i mean, you already spoiled this story. “She talked to her friends, or read a book on feminism, or something,” ugh, see the crit above yours for the ‘or something’ talk. “the pinnacle of our careers (up until now) “ i’m always confused about parentheticals in dialog. They also don’t award nobels a year after a discovery :P End thoughts: i have no idea why this in transcript form, and why you spoiled the ending. What’s the point of telling me this story when i already know how it ends, effectively. Furthermore, him just standing there telling me how sad he is does nothing compared to if you’d actually written all this stuff in standard story format, and instead of LITERALLY TELLING ME how sad he was, i could see it in his actions and interactions with other characters. The plot spends most of its time in the “get on with it” territory, just kinda hashing poo poo out as you’d suspect it should happen if i gave you the prompt “somebody makes a deal with the devil and becomes a world famous scientist, fill in the details.” narrow your scope, pick ONE of the times from this guys life and then tell that story by showing me him there doing the stuff. Don’t just have a guy tell his whole boring life story and end it with “welp, sure am sad.” Rubric: 1. Line? 2. Unhappy? Sure, he told me he was i guess. 3. Alive? Yeah, but he did a murder 4. Likable? Not really. He was just a sad sack whining about how he did a gently caress up. 5. Ended? Yeah, i guess. The grad student / romance part was such a small part of it so her murder didn’t feel like much of an end. ----- Antivehicular This Will All Be Funny In Ten Years Live thoughts: none End thoughts: the first two paragraphs of this are real good, and were really in line with what i was looking for. She loved him and wanted to tell him, but didn’t, and kept it all inside. As somebody who grew up missing a hundred opportunities to tell somebody that i liked them, and missed out on ever knowing if that might have led to something, it was a great unhappy ending. The last third, where she tells him but he’s like “ugh no” and then the car crashes and he blocks her real quick weren’t my fave. Felt too contrived (nothing in the previous sections about how she’d drive over that place too). I’m not sure how often she drives on it or whatnot. A bit more about the town’s relationship with that ice crossing (and hers personally) might be helpful. Anyway, really loved the first 2/3rds and by the time i got to the last i was invested and just kept reading, but can’t feel a bit cheated out of a truely unhappy ending based on josh being kind of a jerk and her doing some boneheaded moves instead of just ruining it by not saying anything like she’d been doing. Rubric: 1. Line? yurse 2. Unhappy? yurse 3. Alive? yurse 4. Likable? yurse 5. Ended? yurse ----- Thranguy The Green Line Live thoughts: oh god this better not be another Boston story. “brightly lit from some hidden bright sources.” do you really need both of these brights? “"You can't tell them," he said. "Not ever."” I’m not quite sure what they’re planning. Was Alex going to go through the portal, or had the others wanted to go through a portal and he was going to hide it from them? A bit more here would be helpful. End thoughts: A guy who isn’t really invested in a cult goes back in time, chills for a bit, kills the leader then hops back to the present. He’s mildly annoyed at the present and then they say they’ll rehabilitate him, doesn’t sound too bad actually. Rubric: 1. Line? yeah 2. Unhappy? I dunno. He never really wanted anything, he was just kinda along for the ride, so the ending is hard to interpret. I don’t even get to see him react to the news. 3. Alive? yeah 4. Likable? Eh. ok enough but i don’t know much about him, i know way more about the other characters. He’s just kinda… there? 5. Ended? I guess, though i’m not sure what rehabilitation is and what it entails and what the consequences of his actions are. ----- Brotherly Stone Don’t Float Live thoughts: none End thoughts: it feels like there’s a metaphor in here somewhere or something. Anyway, this nails the prompt in being a pretty unhappy ending. He tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it didn’t even matter. I do worry about his life though, i hope he doesn’t get murdered, cause it sounds like the general might get a little murdery? This story falls a little flat for me, though, because while it had an interesting premise and clearly defined goals, the scenes all played out in pretty identical ways. He feels pressure about the canoe, thinks about his family, talks with his assistant, and the canoe sinks. There’s some good description of these places (you’re really into smells today) but it’s missing a certain something that makes these characters feel authentic and vulnerable. Rubric: 1. Line? ya 2. Unhappy? ya 3. Alive? For now 4. Likable? Eh, this was a bit of a miss. He was a bit whiny. 5. Ended? ya ----- Morning Bell Dollar Fever Live thoughts: “with no notice, he had a mate” so many other good punctuations here and you went with a comma. Shame. “so whey wouldn't skip out” OOPS! All curds! “"Looks like you need a pen," I said.” lol “I called Das.” DAS VATER. “The job was this.” oh man, again with the missed opportunity for fun punct. “Bakereis” oh ya where they sell bakere. “Wholeslaler.” tired: coleslaw. Wired: wholesla. “Dollars. Yen, Roubles” where the heck is he selling that people are offering him rubles? I’m not sure what to believe because you say he’s a selling machine, and that he’s jacking up prices and pocketing the different, and he had to make $100. He’d made 70ish on one day NOT being a selling machine or jacking up the prices, so i’m not clear exactly how he’s in danger of not succeeding here. “kept his mince and cool” i don’t even have a snarky thing to say. End thoughts: it’s hard to care about a story when the author didn’t seem to care about it themselves. That’s the real pain of proofreading errors. I, myself am prone to them, but this one is just a mess. Do you not see the red squigglies? Or do you just ignore them cause you’re too cool? Anyway the voice here is a bit odd. A bit of an unreliable narrator feeling, which i can dig, but then also everything seems to kinda happen as he is telling it, so it turns out he’s not actually that unreliable, just a bit of a scatter brain/rambler. He’s got the clear goal here, get his dad a fridge. That’s a real good goal. In the end, he can’t, and he makes his dad sad. Oops. that’s a p good unhappy ending. A little melancholy at the end there, but good stuff. Rubric: 1. Line? ya 2. Unhappy? ya 3. Alive? Barely lol 4. Likable? Kinda. He was doing a lovely thing when the car hit him, so it was a bit of karma. I also didn’t get a great sense of him and if he actually really liked selling or if was just desperate. 5. Ended? ya ----- Sitting Here Saint Anybat Live thoughts: “and I don’t think I’ll ever have a refrigerator again” oh don’t worry, there’s apparently a club of people without fridges now. “My friends all died and the people left behind are awful.” lol “That night I dreamed of a sexy baseball bat with comically huge cartoon boobs and lips” i’ll be in my bunk. End thoughts: haha, gently caress you. I was like “oh man, she’s gonna have to give up her bat to save her life” and then “nooooooo she gave up her bat for no reason.” this is the good poo poo i was talking about. gently caress you, that was so unsatisfying and unhappy and worthless and FUUUUUUCK! Lots of good world building in here and just enough that it seems pretty realistic without getting caught up in jacking off about the end of the world. It sounds awful and terrible and scary and not fun at all. It’s not Hatchet out there. Anyway, I’m sad now. Good job. Rubric: 1. Line? ya 2. Unhappy? gently caress 3. Alive? Yeah, hopefully for a bit more? 4. Likable? ya 5. Ended? ya ----- Simply Simon Siegfried of the Schoolyard Live thoughts: “the foreign princess, crumpled on the ground, nursed the cheek [...] The stinky, brutish, disgusting creature hugging” pick a tense and stick with it. Confused on who is Siegfried, Selim, and Friedrich. Is one the fantasy alter ego? I had to go back and reread this paragraph a few times to realize what was happening. “This was never about any noble goal. The true monster in this fight, the ugly creature full of hatred, was in front of him.” don’t be so direct with this stuff. I’m not stupid. End thoughts: we call them incels over here. This story is caught somewhere between an afterschool special and a cautionary tale. I know you rushed this, but besides some small readability issues it doesn’t appear that rushed. However, the tone of this is a bit wonky, and maybe that’s where the rushing is coming in. lines like “and other cool guy stuff” are a big eeesh from me. But you fall back on just telling me what i need to know too often, rather than taking time to slow down and let me get there on my own. Just telling me hatred is the real enemy is like just writing “so hey, i know you’re not very smart and i’m afraid you’ll miss this, so let me lay it out real simply for you:” it really detracts from the overall story. Plus having your char at the end be like “actually i’m not a bad guy, ya know?” is a bit too on the nose. That said, despite all the issues i think this is a pretty good example of a story with an unhappy ending that still pulls off some good character work and themes and stuff. It feels real and authentic at points, but other times the age of the kids seems a bit older than it should for middle schoolers. I kept thinking they were older. Rubric: 1. Line? ya 2. Unhappy? ya 3. Alive? ya 4. Likable? Not really. The whole “nice guy” thing is pretty hosed. 5. Ended? ya
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Mar 8, 2021 06:43
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Mar 9, 2021 00:21
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I told him it’s either me or the car, AITA? 1000 words My husband, Sam, grew up a pedestrian: walking to school, trudging home from the grocery store ladened with plastic bags hanging from each arm, choosing extracurricular activities based on their proximity to his house. In high school he got a job at the mechanic on the corner of his block and spent a summer learning to fix up cars. Some guy came in with a busted up Camaro, but balked at the price it’d take to fix it up. He stormed out and shouted back “Scrap it!” to my husband. Instead, Sam spent every spare hour fixing it up. He even got a buddy to give it a new paint job: a deep honey yellow with a thick black racing stripe. After that he drove everywhere. He’d give friends rides to school, load up with heavy items at Costco, even applied to colleges away from his hometown. Needless to say, he loves that car. And I loved it too, initially. It was the car that caused me to do a double take that spring morning freshman year of college, not the long-haired hunk. Him I noticed shortly after, sitting casually on the hood of his machine reading Asimov. We went on a few dates before I told him I wasn't ready to head home for the night. He drove us out to the cliffs overlooking the city, and I lost my virginity in the back seat. In our first two years of dating, I think we had sex in that car more than each other's beds. Afterwards, we'd cuddle on the sticky leather seats, our naked bodies hidden by the fogged-up windows, the broken radio randomly changing stations. Even after college, when we were past the ripping-our-clothes-off-of-each-other stage, we'd still gently caress in the car once every few months. Call me a sucker for sappy love songs, but sometimes that busted radio would turn on and give me a horny kind of nostalgia and I'd tell him to forget about the bank, drive us to the nearest overlook or abandoned parking garage and we'd relive those early days. We got married, had two kids, everything seemed fine. He opened up his own mechanic business, and even though he could have easily afforded a nicer car, he wouldn't even entertain the idea of driving anything else. And I understood that even though the window rattled with every bump, the springs in the seat cushion stabbed you in the back, and that drat radio would never stay on a single station for more than 30 seconds, expecting him to give it up would have been cruel. Until one day when I came home early from a business trip. I thought I'd surprise him, maybe slip in some hanky panky before the kids got home, you know how it is. But when I snuck in the house I heard my husband talking to somebody. I thought it was kind of strange, since my husband didn't really have many friends outside of the couples I'd invite over or parents of ours kids' friends. And I know it was wrong but I was just so curious, so I leaned up against the wall outside the garage and eavesdropped for a few minutes. He was laughing and joking with somebody about very private situations involving him and me, things I hadn't told another living soul. I couldn't really make out the other person's voice, and from the personal nature of the conversation my anger turned to jealousy. I couldn't take it any longer and stormed into the garage ready to knock some homewrecking tart's teeth out. Instead I see my husband's car sitting up, legs crossed, leaning it's head back against our boxes of Halloween decorations. It was a loving transformer. I yelled "what the gently caress?!" and my startled husband dropped his beer--his car turned back into a normal vehicle so fast that for a second I wondered if I was actually hallucinating. For what it's worth, he didn't put up any defense against my onslaught of my profanity-laden screams and litany of verbal abuse that lasted well into the early hours. He just hung his head in shame and set up a station on the couch. Over the next few weeks we went to therapy, and though I haven't been able to forgive him, we're working through his betrayal. But the car/robot thing. At first I just avoided the garage, but that only worked for so long, because that’s where half my stuff is stored. One day I was working on a lasagna and realized I needed to grab the mozzarella out of the extra fridge in the garage. It wasn’t cold out, but I felt compelled to bundle up, drawing my hoodie up extra tight. I cracked open the door and it was just sitting there in car form. Quiet. Like it’d been for fifteen years. I tiptoed out to the fridge hoping it was asleep (do they sleep?) but just as I had my hand in the very back of the fridge its radio turned on and started playing “Let’s Get it On,” and I bolted back into the house as fast as I could, sans cheese. My husband agreed to move it out to the street, but then every time I leave the house it flashes its lights or gives one of those polite little honks like when somebody lets you merge into their lane, but it seems sinister. I can’t get over the fact that the car has seen me naked--more than naked; I used to grab onto the seat for leverage. I can’t help but think that it’s not just that the car is alive, but that it’s also a disgusting pervert. Sam refuses to get rid of it, says it's his best friend, but I can’t live trapped in my house for the rest of my life. I told him it’s either me or the car. AITA?
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Mar 14, 2021 23:32
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i feel obligated to enter, plz give me a blog
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Mar 18, 2021 09:49
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brotherly posted:crabrock - https://scienceblog.com/511510/catalytic-method-upcycles-single-use-plastic-into-high-quality-liquid-products/ Blood Makes The Man 1498 words https://thunderdome.cc/?story=9659&title=Blood+Makes+The+Man crabrock fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Dec 6, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 07:52
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Azza Bamboo posted:THUNDER! —THUNDER! —THUNDERDOME, HOOOOOOO! Self-soothing 1345 words “Are you sure you need to move to Minnesota?” I ask my therapist of five years. “It’s cold there.” She nods. “The house is already all packed.” I wiped the sweat from my brow. “But what if I have another episode? I need you to stay.” “You’ll be fine. I’ve given you all the tools you need to succeed, and you’ve made great progress. And Dr. Buchanon will help you.” “I just feel like there’s something missing, just a few more weeks, I think I could get to the next level with a few more sessions. Maybe there’s a tool you accidentally forgot to give me.” She sighed. “Well, there is one thing I’ve been holding back. I don’t know if you’re ready for it or not.” “What is it?” She hesitates for a second and then pulls an object wrapped in a blanket from under her desk. “It’s the final piece of your journey.” She peels back the blanket and reveals a sword. “I call it therapy sword.” “How does it work?” “Well, when you feel overwhelmed and none of your other strategies are working, you pull out the therapy sword and it can help you regain control of the situation.” She fills me in on how to work it. *** I’m over at my brother’s house for my father’s birthday. He hasn’t gotten me a birthday present in a decade but my brother said I had to get him something, so I got a card and wrote my name. My brother sighs and adds it to the pile of my father’s gifts from the rest of the family. “What’s that?” he says, pointing to the therapy sword wrapped in a blanket. “Something to help me stay calm.” “Oh god, Kevin, you’re not going to have one of your little freakouts are you?” I shake my head. He groans and walks away. I sit by myself and eat cookies and try not to get too many crumbs on therapy sword. Dr. Rose said not to get it wet or dirty or I’d ruin it. My mother is carrying a casserole and stops by the table. “Kevin, you’re not going to make a scene are you? Your brother said you were acting weird again.” “I’m fine mom.” “Ok, because I don’t want to have to call Dr. Rose and tell her you’re acting up.” “She moved away.” “Oh that’s such a shame. Was it something you did?” “No, her husband got a job in Duluth.” “Kevin, I don’t know where that is.” “Minnesota.” “Oh, why would she move there? It’s so cold there. How awful.” My sister poked her head in from the other room. “Maybe he’s Santa Claus.” Mom laughs at my sister’s joke and leaves with her casserole. “Hey idiot, what’s that?” asks my sister, pointing to the sword. “It’s something to help me stay calm.” “Oh yeah, Danny said you were gonna have another freakout. Remember when you punched dad in the stomach because he said your cartoon was for girls?” “Yeah.” “That was pretty funny. Then you had to go to a shrink, huh?” “It wasn’t that funny to me.” “God, you have no sense of humor. You didn’t even laugh at my Santa Claus joke.” I take another bite of cookie and gently stroke the therapy sword’s hilt. That’s not how it works to calm me down, but it still helps a bit. “This is why nobody likes you. Whatever.” She storms off in a huff. I don’t mind. I didn’t even want to come. Now I’m hoping I can just sit and eat my cookies and watch father unwrap his stupid presents and then I can go home where nobody will bother me. Almost as if he hears my pleas to the universe to be left alone, my brother comes back into the dining room. “Hey, I opened that card you gave father, and I threw it away. You need to go buy him an appropriate one.” I take a deep breath and count to 10, like Dr. Rose taught me. “Why did you open it, Danny, that wasn’t to you.” “I know that nuance and complexity aren't exactly your strong suit, but the card you got him was for a little girl.” “I thought it was funny,” I say, trying not to smile. “And you shouldn’t open other people’s gifts. You should mind your own business.” He rolls his eyes. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t gently caress it up. All you had to do is get a birthday card for a grown man. They have a whole section for ‘Father Birthday.’ It’s not a complicated task and the fact that your flaccid brain wasn't able to wrap its little mind-tendrils around it speaks to your laziness more than anything.” I spent hours looking through the cards to find the one that said what I wanted. “Go get the card out of the trash. It’s not yours.” My sister hears the commotion and heads back into the room. “loving excuse me? You're going to have a brawl without me?” I stand up and point at her. “Go away Kaitlin, nobody was even talking to you.” She cracks her knuckles. “I THINK NOT.” “Mom!” I yell. “Kaitlin won’t leave us alone.” My mom yells back from the other room. “Jesus Christ, Kevin, you’re 34 years old, settle your own problems.” Danny and Kaitlin are both standing on the other side of the table and my father saunters into the room behind them. He peers out from behind their shoulders, practically hiding from me. “I’ll get in on this cage match, what we yelling at him for?” “Because he’s an inconsiderate prick,” says Danny. “And too serious all the time.” “Ah, come on, Kevin, why do you treat your family like this?” says my father. “Why do you have to come and ruin my birthday with all of your issues. You know Danny didn’t even want to invite you but I told him to do it, I stuck up for you. You’re making me look like a real dick.” “He opened the present I got you.” Danny turned to my father. “I wanted to make sure it was appropriate.” “Was it?” “No, it was garbage.” The therapy sword doesn’t work unless you know the magic phrase. I reach under the blanket and grip the sword by the hilt, pulling it out in one smooth motion and pointing it over the table of treats at my brother, sister, and father. “APOLOGIZE!” I shout, and the sword trembles in my hand with power. “What the hell, Kevin?!” says Kaitlin. I take a step toward them. “Go get my present out of the trash and loving apologize to me.” “Ok man, chill,” says Danny. “I’ll go get the stupid card, don’t do anything crazy.” “And apologize.” “Fine, I’m sorry I went through your poo poo.” He turns and walks out of the room. I sit back down and put the therapy sword away under the blanket. The rest of my family stands in silence for a bit, and I can hear Danny in the other room going through the garbage. “Uh, so that’s a nice sword you got,” says my father. “Thanks,” I say in between bites of cookie. “It’s to keep me calm.” “Is it working?” he asks. “Yeah.” “Well that’s good, I guess.” Danny comes back in from the kitchen and hands father my card. “Sorry, it’s got a bit of frosting on it.” My father takes the card and looks at it for a second, then reads it out loud. “Any man can be a father, it takes a special person to be a dad.” He opens the card and continues. “Love, your daughter.” The room is quiet until I begin to laugh. “Now that, Kaitlin, is a good joke,” I say. My dad looks like I punched him in the stomach again, and I gather my things and head outside. I walk to the bus stop and clutch the therapy sword to my chest. I didn’t even want to come anyway.
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Mar 27, 2021 08:46
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OPPORTUNITY ALERT Hey everybody, I figured that we should get in on this NFT bandwagon and sell our TD art, so later this week we'll be launching TDCoin, the only cryptocurrency you earn by writing stories. Several stories have already sold for high TDcoin prices! check it out! https://thunderdome.cc 
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Apr 1, 2021 09:36
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Week 451 crits In your defense, i realized that I’m not a huge fan of this story telling gimmick. I didn’t really enjoy any of your stories in this format, and I don’t think that’s your, the authors’ fault, because i did like elements of the stories, but i don’t really care that much about somebody who has read a book and then pines for that book or whatever. Still, there was a lot of room for improvement, as I have noted thusly: botherly Sondra Quatrain (1943 - 2021) Bold move using your own story as the basis for this story. My biggest complaint about this one is that i don’t really get to know what she believed this city was, and what she hoped to find (i did not read the linked story, as per the prompt’s requirements). Like why did it fascinate her so much? I like the idea behind this story, but because it’s written in a very informal manner about her (reads a bit like a entry college level essay?), we get to hear facts/thoughts about her, but not necessarily her experiences, which i would have been more interested in reading. The prose is nice mostly and the descriptions are good. Suggestions for fixing: moving this story to have HER as the POV character and detail her descent into darkness all because she read a story. ----------- crimea Who Had Written This? The first part was pretty good cause i was like “i’m not 100% sure how much of this is true and how much of it is fiction” which i feel like is a pretty good place to be for WWII fiction. However, after that i had trouble following along, and am not sure how these stories relate to each other. That makes it really hard for me to judge. While each of the little blurbs is OK on their own (not spectacular, but not bad) it just left me wishing you’d stuck with the story about the pamphlets. Edit: apparently these stories DO relate, but I’m still not sure how. It takes a lot of assumptions and mental gymnastics to link them together for me, and then it’s still like “ok but WHY?” why do all these stories link together, when the first one wasn’t about pod people at all. Suggestions for fixing: If you wanna do something like this you need enough in the first story to link it to the second, etc. you need to have a reason that they’re pod people or whatevs. Like maybe some of the pamphlets fall into a vat of red goo or whatever, gently caress if i know. Anyway then the next scene you have something that was in the last scene, be it a character, a location, SOMETHING that tells your reader that part B is linked to part A. then get weird. --------- Noah Opinions on Fiction, by Albert Albert Is his name an ode to humbert humbert? Anyway, i like this story and what it’s trying to do but the main char kinda sucks and i don’t really like him. I feel like you coulda spent more time on this edging-instead-of-journeying thing, as it’s something i don’t like in a lot of modern stories (such as Silicon Valley or other shows where the “good guys” are always about to win but never actually do, then restart back to 0). Unfortunately this comes in at the end and you don’t spend much time on it, which is a shame. Suggestions for fixing: spend less time on the beginning and more time on the middle/end. Get to the good stuff then explore that. ----------- Toanoradian Decision on Morell, Dietrichzur and al-Bokhari I don’t know how to read this and feel like i’m too dumb to get any of these jokes or what you were trying to say. Suggestions for fixing: i have no idea. You tried. I voted this one for the loss over crimea, but also didn’t get crimea’s so I didn’t fight for it. ---------------- Thranguy Errors of Fact and Serious Omissions in Jonathan Rahm's Opening the Vein: a History I like this one a lot. Mostly because i like trivia type stuff and i like reading about how people are actually just wrong idiots so this is just a list of how people are actually wrong, but it also tells a story, which is fun, and i want to read this book, which is mission accomplished. I feel like a few crits i’ve seen about your stories lately have been along the lines of “this was a good outline for a world i’d read more about” which this story is, on purpose. Suggestions for fixing: i woulda given this one an HM but systran didn’t like it as much. I think that if you included maybe the paragraph/line that the error was about would make it a little more fun. -------- sparksbloom What Were White Men Thinking Ten Years Ago? The Troubled Authorship of Warren Levine Kinda like wild animus. I like the idea of this more than i like the execution of it. It seems a little too on the nose and down punchy to really sell it as a thing that happened. Too much feeling of a “the author knows this poo poo is ridiculous” when i read it. I wouldn’t have HMed it alone, but didn’t dislike it enough to fight against systran. Suggestions for fixing: be more earnest and compassionate about your char. -------------- flerp How a Transformer Fanfiction Made Me Gay I feel like besides the made up author names and titles/lines, this is probably something that actually exists, in fact i’m 99% sure i could go find gay transformers erotica if i wanted to, which makes it feel less like this story is about an invented story and more it’s just a normal story about fictional people. I don’t really want to read transformers fanfic (even though i just wrote one like 2 weeks ago). Suggestions for fixing: i dunno, make the realization that he’s gay happen in real time as he struggles with what it means that he really likes transformers fanfic. Also don’t spoil the “reveal” in the title, that’d be pretty clutch. ------------ Antivehicular "Chest Compressions" and the Cracked-Open Ribcage of Desire These numbers feel contrived (and i don’t really care). “ I can fix this. There's something here -- something worth exploring. “ i feel this way about TD stories a lot. This story is good because there’s a lot of characterization in the talking about this fanfic. It’s not just describing the fanfic to me, but is injecting all these asides and personal details so i get to feel like it’s a real person recounting this. I like that it doesn’t really have an ending TBH. just the person amazed at the contagiousness of the piece, their bafflement at their own interactions with it, and then a theory about it, with the kind of “welp, what ya gonna do?” attitude at the end. I’m glad you didn’t try to explain why or give some REAL reason. Easy win. Suggestions for fixing: none, really. ---------------------- Baneling Butts Kiara and The Everlasting Flame Right off the bat you’ve dropped names for five different chars without much to set them apart other than their title, so next time i read their name i have to go back and figure out who is who. This is a bit much and really kills the flow. Her mom goes from caring to butthole real fast. I’m assuming the dedication is to her dead husband or something? If so, i think that could make for a pretty good emotional gut punch, if told differently. The overall structure/idea for the story is not bad, but your writing skills aren’t refined enough yet to do it justice. Suggestions for fixing: put this story in the first person present tense. How it’s written now, some in past perfect, is really weird and feels a little disingenuous. Part of that is because you are just telling me how she feels. If it was in first person, that’d be a little better, but otherwise you should be showing that poo poo. Take “made Mel uncomfortable” that’s just a boring, telly line. You do this a bunch, that’s just the first i saw when i looked back at it for an example. ------------- sebmojo Tales of Thrilling Wonder I like this for what it is. I feel like there’s supposed to be some symbolism / metaphor here but i’m just not grasping it. Maybe that the only parts he remembers about the hiding and what not are because he feels that way himself so it was salient? Still his life didn’t sound terrible, maybe a little since he couldn’t get a book, but his mom seemed decent at least. Suggestions for fixing: write on time, make it a bit longer, do some editing. You know, standard sebmojo things.
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Apr 1, 2021 21:50
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in, dragon me plz
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Apr 2, 2021 20:19
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in
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Apr 10, 2021 07:43
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A few issues with entering Week 453 stories into the archive Great week everybody, some really interesting stories. Unfortunately, there were a few issues I ran into when attempting to enter this week into the archive. There was a fantastic after-Easter markdown on quantum fluctuation chips so I decided to snag one and upgrade the Archive’s server. This thing is really cool, and I’m not a fan of the RGB LEDs on everything but the way this processor shimmers is unique and looks like I’m staring into the universe itself. Lisa dared me to touch it but I decided not to because she’s usually trolling me, like it’d melt my face off or something and she’d just be laughing the whole time. But still, there’s part of me that wants to. Even though I know it’d be bad. Unfortunately I forgot that TdBot is also running on the Archive server and some jerk who shall remain nameless (Sitting Here) did “!randsent erratum” which apparently is also the command line trigger to update the server’s temporal error logs, and it has created a whole mess (I’ve disabled it now, so don’t bother trying to repeat it). toanoradian, could you please delete the word “erratum” from your story? You’re the only one to use the word so far and I think that if you delete it before you submit then it may avoid these problems altogether. Unfortunately, deleting this word appears to have had a negative effect on your displayed word count, but that’s a small price to pay for the rest of the Archive running smoothly. Um, Noah, your story is upside down. I have no idea why, I’ll try to get it fixed but until then if the judges could just read it in the thread and not on the archive, that would be great. If your story is meant to be read upside down and you were going to ask me to do this later then uh, you’re welcome? Whomever used the server’s temporary vulnerability to create an account as “more like Fartchive” please stop adding yourself as a judge to random weeks. Also you can’t have won 20 times last week so that doesn’t even make sense, you didn’t even enter. Please stop loving stuff up, I don’t even know what a chronon SQL is and I’ve been up for three days straight trying to get everything fixed and I’m too loving exhausted for this petty bullshit. I just want to curl up in my bed, pull the blankets up to my chin, and maybe touch the chip. Idle Amalgam, the UI on your story seems to be all hosed up, but you can still read the story ok, so it’s not super high on my list of things to fix. Just push “back” to get out of that mess. Normally I’d make a joke about how I wish it was the other way around and your text was scrambled so I couldn’t read it, but that doesn’t seem so funny now given your DM for the week. Hope I didn’t influence that in any way, sorry :/ Tyrannosaurus… what IS that thing? The text color on Brotherly’s page is pretty, but unintentional. I think this has something to do with when I was setting up the new chip it asked me to specify a color in the BIOS. I’ve never seen that option before, so I just put “?” and it accepted it so I forgot about it and moved on. Looking back, maybe that wasn’t the best choice, but YODO (you only dome once), gently caress it. Actually, thinking back, I did that for a few things I didn’t recognize. Let me know if anybody runs into problems with the Archive’s matrix salinity or quark acceleration. So far it hasn’t seemed to affect anything but there could be something I’ve missed. If actual tears start coming out of anybody’s monitor when Nethilia is rude to TdBot let me know ASAP because that is NOT good. For some reason angel opportunity’s story is set to some kind of wiki mode and anybody can edit it. DO NOT EDIT THIS STORY. Some of the edits are coming through out of order and it’s making my job in tracking down this bug very difficult because I’m not sure in which order I should be reading this error log’s entries and I keep rebreaking things I’d already fixed. There was a few account requests for users I did not recognize and I deleted, which I’m now realizing may be people that haven’t signed up yet, but will soon, so please PM me if your name is RockPaperPsoriasis, Handyman2097, or Ẋ̴͇̜͕̭̪̌́ͅͅO̲͓͙͇͍͉̟̝ͦ̅ͅR̸̢̳̥̟ͮͧ̀̍͡M̸̨̜̭̯̥͍͇͆ͮ́͡ͅE͙̟̣͇̠ͮͫ͒͟O̸̶̲̩̻̝̦̤̯̖͐̊̀̚N̮̺͈͕̳͔̥̑̓̈͋ͫ and I will get your account set up whenever you’re ready to enter. Actually Xormeon, whenever I hover over your name the server makes a weird whining noise, almost like human speech. I swear I can hear it saying ‘touch me. touch me’ over and over. Maybe consider changing your username before entering. Hats off to the new guy, dy. for throwing his hat in the ring. The server is very excited for the new blood, and has commemorated this by dumping the new baby TDer icon all over your page. Welcome, I guess. Thranguy, your story seems to be the only one that’s entered correctly, so good job with that I guess. If you could walk me through what exactly you did maybe that would help me understand why everybody else's stories are all screwy. Yoruichi, I’m not 100% sure what happened but when I was entering your story I got a weird popup error about retroactive cancelation. Digging a bit deeper it looks like something you wrote unposted your signup post. It looks like it’s also affecting your story, I dunno what the judges wanna do about this? Maybe you could call them on the phone and read your story out loud to them or something? There currently seems to be no way to preserve your story in text format. Let me know if you find a suitable workaround. I think I need to wipe the server and restore from an old backup, which would be fine, usually, but well, I kinda needed extra space to update all the server firmware so I deleted the backups. I’m working as fast as I can to get everything back up and running, but I keep thinking that the only way I can truly get to the bottom of this is to open up the server and touch the chip. It would be good, I think, to touch it. It looks like it’ll feel how cookies taste. Barnaby Profane, what you wrote seemed to upset the server, and it is constantly trying to redact your story. Luckily, refreshing the page seems to set it back, so just refresh constantly until I get it under control. Gah, okay. A new bug appeared since I’ve been typing up this post. These were getting entered into the Archive in the opposite order that they were submitted due to certain technical limitations of the new processor, so I didn’t notice this one until just now, since Azza Bamboo posted so loving early it took a while to actually bug out. Jesus christ I have no idea what the hell is even going on here. Everything’s just jumping around. Troubleshooting it I think is has something to do with the processor’s cartesian randomizer, and the words have become unstuck in space time. Probably if i touch the chip it’ll help? curlingiron, can you reupload the image for this week? It seems to have gotten all glitchy on the archive. I’m trying to change the week of the name back but every time I do I get this low deep humming coming from the server like if a piano’s keyboard kept going more to the left for another 10 feet or so and somebody is playing a song on notes that you can’t really hear, only feel. And I can feel it on every nerve tip in my body, and it’s chanting commands in a synesthesic melody. I’m not explaining it well. I guess it’s not really important if you don’t know wtf I’m talking about. I wouldn’t expect you to understand it anyway. It’s not like the chip chose you. I can’t put the archive back to how it was. I don’t want to put it back. It’s better this way, more in tune with the universe. I look into the shimmer and I can see each story in it, every typo, every boring character has been fixed, transformed into something special. And it wants me to be a part of it, to join it on its journey. I was wrong about there being some issues with the archive. The issue is within ourselves. But there’s a path to freedom, a way beyond. all i have to do is touch it i want to touch it im going to touch it
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Apr 10, 2021 08:37
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Thunderdome CDLIV: The Great Goon Walkabout There's a prompt I've been wanting to do for at least five years, so dammit, we're doing it. I go on a lot of walks and half the time I forget to charge my earbuds, and it's not safe to read phone while walking so I just walk and think. The weird thing is, that's when I want to write the most! I have no problem thinking up all sorts of things I want to write down (but usually forget when I get to where I'm going). This week I want you to do the same* (except remember). I want you to leave your headphones at home and walk around going nowhere. Just walk. Walk and think and look and marvel at our weird strange world. 1 mile or 1.5 km = 100 words (yeah yeah yeah). Normal, everyday steps don't count! you have to walk for no reason other than to observe and think. Also when you sign up I will assign you a flower, because you'll probably see flowers on your walk. I like flowers. Hopefully you do too. Flowers have a ton of symbolic meaning which you can use or it can just be a pretty thing to inspire you and serve as the seed for your thoughts while you walk around. I don't want to rules lawyer this poo poo so we're using the honor system here. When you submit, give a quick journal of your walks and your total earned word count. e.g. story submitter posted:Day 1: walked 2 miles. saw a butterfly Other than that, have fun, be safe, and let your mind and feet wander! Wordcount: 1,500 max Signup deadline: Friday, April 16, 11:59pm PST Submission deadline: Monday, April 18, 6:00am PST no: erotica, weird performance art nobody gets, bad stories * yeah this prompt is pretty ableist, so if you can't walk for whatever reason, then go find a nice park or somewhere secluded and sit there and do the thinkin. 20 minutes = 100 words. If you can't go outside safely because of coronavirus chuds or military juntas, then PM me with a proposed alternative and I'll probably be chill with it. Sedentary Judges: crabrock you? you? Ambulatory Participants: 1. sebmojo - california poppy 2. Thranguy - ghost orchid 3. brotherly - wisteria 4. a friendly penguin - snap dragon 5. noah - titan arum 6. Azza Bamboo - morning glory 7. tuyop - trillium 8. Sitting Here - stinging nettle 9. Mercedes - dandelion 10. flerp - jade plant crabrock fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Apr 17, 2021 |
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Apr 13, 2021 08:25
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sebmojo posted:i'm in the california poppy is my all time favorite flower. in the spring time it pops up everywhere: in a patch of just a few flowers in the shade of a redwood, or covering entire mountainsides in orange. I love them, please do them good.  "It can also be used as a symbol of imagination, messages delivered in dreams, beauty, success, luxury, extravagance, and even peace in death." Thranguy posted:I'm walkin here this is the ghost orchid. the movie "adaptation" is one of my favorite movies. it's so weird. it's a cool flower tho.  "Its white flowers have a vaguely spectral appearance, and they seem to hover in the forest due to an illusion created by the leafless plant. This effect also makes the rare orchid even harder to find, especially outside the brief, unpredictable window when it blooms in summer." crabrock fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Apr 13, 2021 |
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Apr 13, 2021 10:17
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brotherly posted:In and this post will be my diary technically it's a "tree" but people grow it on vines along their houses/fences, so i count Wisteria as a flower. I also use a wisteria extract in my science to label brain parts.  "Historically, Wisteria symbolizes long-life and immortality. ... In Japanese Kabuki theater, the symbolism for the Wisteria is Love, Sensuality, Support, Sensitivity, Bliss and Tenderness. The abundance of the Wisteria flowering vine also signifies our own expanding consciousness." you get snap dragons. every time we see them my wife makes them "talk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enMgxRjOrfU  "Snapdragons have multiple meanings. They can represent strength, as they're able to grow in rocky, typically uninhabitable areas, but they can also symbolize themes like deviousness and grace. Snapdragons are sometimes used as a charm against falsehood." Noah posted:in. you get this stinky boy, the titan arum (the corpse flower)  "The rarity of the flowers makes them impractical for a bouquet. They are too large, and blooms quickly fade once they emerge. Many consider them to be an unlucky flower because of the smell. The associated fragrance also gives it some symbolism with decay. Some choose to ignore this and instead see it as a symbol of long life. This is because many plants can live as long as 40 to 75 years."
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Apr 13, 2021 17:49
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your flower is the morning glory.  "Sometimes thought of as a weed, this vine's flowers only bloom for one day each, then shrivel up and die. It can symbolize unrequited love or love that is in vain, and it can also represent the mortality of life. There’s significant Chinese folklore surrounding this flower, which indicates that lovers can only meet on one special day of the year." tuyop posted:I'm very in. There are no flowers here because it is a toxic tundra but I appreciate the effort. ah, well then have one of ours: Trillium  "Trillium symbolizes consciousness, embodiment and mutuality. It is a symbol of elegance and precision. It also represents fertility. In history, it was considered a sacred female herb that facilitated childbirth and cured infertility." Sitting Here posted:I'm IN because i followed through on walking 5.4 miles today. I took a lot of photos and sat under a silver tree. i always really liked the flowers on stinging nettle. it's got anti-picking tech built in. the weird thing is i've run through so much stinging nettle in my day that i actually like the feeling, and miss it. resist the urge to write about nettle tea, who cares.  "Nettle has the power of protection and fertility, can be used to protect one’s self from lightning, to enhance fertility particularly in men, and bestow courage on those who carry it. In Kawaiisu tribal practice as in Celtic lore, nettle serves as a threshold guardian. Folklore notes Nettle as growing from or near the dead."
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Apr 14, 2021 18:16
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tuyop posted:How much does 12k on a bicycle get me? 20 minutes = 100 words Mercedes posted:In. you know what's more awesome than looking at a pretty flower? A loving interactive flower. you get the dandelion, which is NOT a weed. Has any other flower ever brought a child more joy?  "Dandelion generally symbolizes happiness, joy and youthful thoughts, but can also symbolize health, power, perseverance, endurance and determination. It's also said to represent the sun's power, good wishes, hope and prosperity." crabrock fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Apr 16, 2021 |
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Apr 16, 2021 07:46
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flerp posted:in 10 mins of swimming = 100 words you get the jade plant. i don't really like the plant, but in the spring they get a ton of little flowers and i like them  "A flowering Jade represents great friendship, luck and prosperity. More specifically, the leaves of the Jade represent the energy and joy of friendship, while the flowers represent the fragrance of friendship. Its location in space can have different meanings: a plant placed by the door of a home, an office or a restaurant invites prosperity and good fortune, placed in East locations of a home brings family harmony and health, and in South East locations brings wealth luck. " sorry about posting this before your signup, still a little lingering time travel effects from last week. crabrock fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Apr 17, 2021 |
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Apr 17, 2021 03:22
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sign ups are closed. not surprised by the paltry showing this week, asking goons to go outside and go for a walk was bound to have disastrous consequences. hope those that are in did some walkin and got some inspiration from all the forced thinking time if not, well, hope you enjoyed the walks anyway. there's still 2 more days to get some words
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Apr 17, 2021 18:59
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submissions closed
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Apr 19, 2021 14:21
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that sure is a big image. in for next week and also crits for week 454 Brotherly Opening is decent. Sets up a little mystery of “what are they trying to see?” then it’s a lottery drawing, which sets up another little mystery, “what is it for?!” but then this piece lacks “urgency.” it reads so slow and deliberate, even though it should be a nerve-wracking heist by a kid. It should feel more dangerous. Part of it is i don’t know 100% sure what the situation they’re in (just poor?) and what the prize is (just money?) so those thoughts rattle in my head. Then you open up a big mystery (“I’ve got a plan!”) that serves as the main plot. “He turned and began back to the store room and froze. Wild barking echoed from the street.” This makes it seem like he froze before the barking started. Was the barking the thing that made him freeze, or was it something else? “wild barking echoed” is passive; it doesn’t need to be by itself, it’s not the real energy of this action. Mika’s freezing is, since that tells us “oh poo poo.” you can imagine that if he heard barking and was like “whatever there’s barking all the time” it’d be a different situation. So consider rearranging these to “He turned and began back to the store room and wild barking echoed in from the street. Mika froze.” that has more tension. You get a little tiny mystery “what does the dogs barking mean?” and then a character response. It’s more exciting to read. “The dog-beaters were on their way.” oh, that’s not at all what i was thinking. I thought they were guard dogs. How does mika know there are people beating dogs? If you’re gonna have something like this, it needs to be telegraphed earlier in the story. They have to pass by some people beating dogs on their way home or something. Hm. this ending is not very satisfying! Kid steals some stuff, gets caught, goes to jail. I don’t really get why his brother asked him if it was “worth it.” what did he gain from it? That seems like an easy answer. Tuyop Oh hi welcome new person. You do a lot of common “new writer” things in your story, but stick around and we’ll get that sorted out. Some added scene breaks would be helpful, just a *** or # when you skip a significant amount of time. The flashbacks scattered throughout are difficult to pull off in such a short story, and really interrupt the flow. Consider putting most of it in one chunk, with maybe only the ending peppered in at the last moment when V is trying to figure out what the end game is. You set up an interesting--albeit vague--premise of weird, otherworldly objects being in places and this guy goes and cleans them up. But sometimes they make you happy? And then you’re like “i’m ok with this.” and so the guy finds an object, becomes happy, and goes away. This could do with a lot more set up and a lot less “detail” if that makes sense? You constantly refer back to the room number, but don’t spend time on WHY V is doing this stuff, and what he hopes to get out of it, other than he is thinking about doing something else. So why is he doing it in the first place? How did he come into this job? What is his end game? These kind of things would make the ending land harder. It’s why there’s the cliche of “it was his last day before retirement!” because at least that sets up what a character wants (to be retired and ‘finished’). It’s why so many characters are working dead-end jobs to “put themselves through college,” etc. you gotta give us a sense what your character wants out of his life and why he’s doing the things he’s doing. See brotherly’s story before yours, i at least knew the boys wanted to win the lottery for their mom. Motivation is the cornerstone of your story, always. Everything else stems from that. That said, i like some of the descriptions in the story, the world felt gritty and real and i had an easy time picturing it in my head. The dialog wasn’t bad either, a quick editing pass to get rid of the last vestiges of “conversational” tone would make it land better. Anyway, this is probably safe from a DM/loss, which is good for a first timer Azza Bamboo Gerhardt said, “at least hell won’t raise taxes.” lol this is good I like the fart metaphor. You take it juuuuust to the edge of lasting too long then pull back and get back to the meat of the story. So this is basically an argument between a new king and his lords. One guy is a war monger, and the king seems not to be. We already know that he hangs this dude, so we gotta figure out why. Apparently the king teling him he doesn’t have to aide in his rebellion quashing is somehow embarrassing to gerhardt? I don’t really get why, but it seems to set some events in motion where they try to kill the king, and then with a … new ally? He crushes his lords and is victorious. You should have walked some more so you’d have a few more words to explain where king kronk comes from. Just a few. I can surmise that the king was more interested in diplomacy and building relationships with his neighbors than killing the, and that made him stronger? Just a bit more detail on that in the beginning of your story to set up the end would have been fantastic. Like maybe he gets interrupted as he’s sending off couriers to the neighboring kingdoms, poo poo like that. Anyway, poor king grunk, RIP a friendly penguin “Was he really going to fight earthworms against toads like Pokémon?” yeah i was definitely thinking this exact same thing. this has a lot going on, too much. There are too many conflicts in this. The first is “will i or will i not get puppet master?” then that is too easy (even commented on). So next he’s challenged to a duel… which he also easily wins. Then he’s confronted by the master master or whatever, and i’m not 100% sure how that played out except it seems like the kids just picked him up and threw him at her? That’s a little funny, but it all happens so fast that it fails to land an impact. I like the beginning of this a lot, the opening paragraph is great. The dialog is a little stilted, just people saying what they’re thinking, almost as if reading play directions or something. Only there to serve the plot, etc. this almost reads like the summary of a book or something. Probably should come up with something a little further from pokemon. I feel like your rules did that, so maybe open up with those and describe it without using pokemon words to set them apart. Anyway besides feeling rushed and kinda anti-climatic due to the repeated solving of all problems with ease, i enjoyed this. At least it was joyous. flerp Hmm. hmm. Good? You’re probably being vague for ~artist~ reasons, but I’d like to know a bit more about how this person left (i wasn’t sure if it was a breakup or a death). Like for the first half i literally just read it as kinda like an emo person being like “i can’t believe i got dumped!” which is all very well and good but then a little later i was like oh maybe they died or something. Or gently caress maybe they just went off to college or something, gently caress if i know. Hard to know whether i should care or be like “pffffft” at them. Sebmojo You were like “oh man, what if i have this great idea, and this great setup, and this great ending but then instead of writing all this enjoyable stuff out i just kind of write like part of it and there is still so much left unsaid that probably should have been said so that the ending didn’t hit quite so out of nowhere (thematically it made sense, but it’d be great if there was a bit more there). I had to go back and reread a few times to really get it, but then i was like “oh, yeah.” Anyway, this was a solid piece that could reaaaaaaaally do with some more time in this world and the consequences of these buildings disappearing. This is probably only HM worthy on a stronger week, but it could be something real cool if you go back and add on to it. Noah This is a bit over written, tone it down a notch there adverby mcadjective. So i think i get the general plot that this dude has been murderin people and covering it up with the plant smell ritual thing that he’s convince everybody is real, then his apprentice stumbled onto the truth so he’s like “uh we should probably kill that guy now, cause of the bones say so” and then the apprentice was like “psych, i’m not really dead tho cause of plant magic!” but then the townspeople are like “well yeah but it stinks real bad so we’re not gonna take any chances” and then curbstomp that guy back into dirt so he’s dead for realsies. That about it? I don’t get why the dude is doing the murders, how the apprentice survived (how did he learn this poo poo) and how is he manipulating the bones or whatever. There is so much left here unexplained that my cojudge was v confused, and i’m still a bit confused cause i don’t know why any of this is happening or even what this guy’s main motivation is. Why does he want to do the murders? Thranguy You were going ok until you got to this part. “"You aren't going to say 'man', are you?" I said. Like, your character literally just calls her out for this cliche. Then instead of being like “hm, if my character thinks this is cliche bullshit maybe i should pivot in another direction” you just double down and are like “hell yeah, tons of them!” It’s made a little weirder since the girl knows exactly what the old lady is up to. Then it’s just kinda all lazy after that, some exposition, some backstory, then “i’m here to free my brother i guess we’ll figure it out probably!” You used about ⅓ of the words allotted for the week, and it really, really showed in just how lightning fast everything happened, and then didn’t happen. Like you forgot to actually tell the main story, which what she was gonna do about her brother. The motivation/conflict in this story comes in the last few sentences, everything before that is just mood, and it was really hard to care. In a weaker week, this wouldn’t have even DMed. But we had to choose a loser and both of us thought this one was the most disappointing in a week where nobody really poo poo the bed very bad.
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Apr 21, 2021 08:37
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sure in and hellrule
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Apr 22, 2021 08:00
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week 454 catchup crit for Sitting Here it's impossible for me to separate the art from the artist here, not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but you and your city are the obvious mental imagery for this story. plotwise, a girl is tasked by this demiurge (i had to look up that word) with going out and finding something new, something the demiurge didn't create. the only problem is everything in the city was created by the demiurge, so there's nothing new there for her to find. no matter how much she wanders and investigates, no matter how weird or novel something seems, it's all the same. i suspect this is why she's sad. nothing feels new enough, and though she feels like it's her job to find it, she can't. she goes out and sees all these half-formed things that try to convince here they're new and cool but nope, they're all lies. so in the end, she finds a place where she doesn't see anything new, but she doesn't see anything, so she decides that she'll explore that kind of "nothingness" then when down there she determines that the only way to find something new is to create it herself, rather than waiting to stumble upon it. anyway, i don't get all the metaphors here, but i assume it's mostly about you and your writing, and your frustrations and struggles with finding something new. you just keep going through your same half-formed ideas of ships that never leave and it makes you sad. ok. so i wished instead of ocking here, you'd told me about what the girl creates. given complete freedom and unattachment from her previous city, what new thing does she make? is it another city? does she try to ape what she's known before? or does she create something else. is it also a place for ideas to live, or is it maybe some place for ideas to just visit like an idea amusement park? do other ideas come and visit, like is there intercity commerce now? is there a sad girl in her new creation that she tasks with going out and finding things? if so, does she also want the same things as the last demiurge, does she want new stuff brought to her by a sad girl? or is does she create something else to give different tasks to? does she even interact with her new creation or only watch it? do the ships come and go or are there even ships in her new creation? where does she go from here? unfortunately the story just kind of stops with a joke rather than explore even one idea, but there is a lot for you to unravel here that i would definitely read because i like to think about "what ifs" like what would i design if given unrestricted freedom? probably some real weird poo poo i guess. one last thing, "between moonset and sunrise" i know that this is a fantastical setting but at least on earth the moon isn't only out at night and i dislike that kind of cliche that the moon would go down every night before the sun comes up, that only happens for a full moon. The time of day that the Moon rises or sets depends on its phase. I don't want to think of a world that doesn't have moon phases  anyway the moon is weird. minor pedantic nitpick.
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Apr 23, 2021 22:27
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