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In with Avenoir
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Jan 6, 2024 03:50
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The Damage You'll Do 886 words Prompt: Avenoir- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKOW30gSMuE The hard part about endings is that you know they’ll happen, but can never be sure quite when. Your hand closes around the little sliver of metal. Does a part of us know it’s the last time we’ll see each other? I put the last of my things in the hard-case and kiss the dog on his little forehead one more time. I look around the living room and I feel like it should look more empty than it does. We walk down the stairs and I hand you my key. There’s a feeling in my chest that I can’t quite put into words. It’s like a clench-and-release, the soft stroke of a razor in the unguarded parts of me. We’ve savaged each other like cats in a sack, awash and rippling in blood and recrimination. The funk of unwashed dishes and suppressed screaming forms a kind of haze, the background radiation released when love decays. You need me out and I can’t move, immovable object and unstoppable force. Could I have stopped this by leaving sooner? Could you have stopped it by asking sooner, by talking like a partner rather than handing down a dictum? There’s no way to know. It’s gone too quiet around the home. I think the dog’s noticed it first. He’s laying stretched out in the middle of the couch, one paw touching each of our knees, desperately trying to bridge a gap we barely know is there, let alone growing at speed. Did we see it coming? Where was the turnoff point that could have steered us away from the chasm? There’s a comfort and maturity to these days, a post-honeymoon Silver Age of domestic contentment. Should we be counting off who’s doing most of the cooking? Should we have a chore-wheel, some means of accountability in labor sharing? I know I pick the shows we watch over dinner more often than not, but will that be the problem? I thought that you’d want what I want. Sorry, my dear. This is the good part, the days of wine and roses. We glory in cohabitation, the permanent ‘now’ of never needing to leave one another. Those first few weeks we stay up half the night, drunk and loving like high-schoolers. Every joke is funny and every meal a feast. I wish that I could bottle these moments and cellar them like a fine vintner, setting them against a cold and rainy day when my soul will need their rich, red sunlight. I wish that this could last forever. But it doesn’t. Nothing gold stays. I can see silver nights. We’re a summer couple, languid in the heavy air of early July. We’ve dragged a blow-up mattress onto your back porch to enjoy the breeze; even with the window unit blaring your apartment swelters. We lie together and the moonlight turns our sweat-rimed skin to shining glass. The smell of you is heady as liquor and I’m drunk with it. My mind is swimming and there’s nothing in it but the rustle of linen and the sway of the breeze and the gentle, staccato flutter of your breath. We make of ourselves a fever and resolve to burn together. It’s a gentle dance at first, the coy flirtation of texts and chats over coffee. I take you to my favorite cocktail bar, you bring me to your local theater. We meet each other's friends in groups or ones-and-twos. The eagerness is what I know I’ll miss. There’s a mad desire to learn every fact and facet of each other, to climb into one another’s skins and live there, memorizing every pore and firing neuron until we realize the lie of separation, that we were never two things but a part of a whole that’s finally found itself. We look at one another on sunny verandas and dingy dives, drinking each other in until our eyes hurt and our jaws ache from laughing. We are feral and free. I have a free evening, no classes to catch up on, no papers to grade. I decide to take advantage of it and knock back a quick pint in the amiably disinterested comfort of the local. That’s where I see you first. I swear the light limns you like a halo at the corner of the bar, dusky glow playing with a heavy reader’s pale skin and stylishly artless academic black. It’s a trite cliche now, to look at someone stunning and say “I’d let them ruin my life,” but I can see it. I know the damage you’ll do. It’s in the set of your hip, in the way you push thick-rimmed glasses up the bridge of a sculpted nose, in the wry twist of a full-lipped mouth and the possessive grip on your wine glass. I can see a future stretched out before me, warped around you like a rubber sheet deformed by a lead weight. There’s a feeling in my chest that I can’t quite describe, like the tickling of butterflies or the first moment of free-fall when you leap from a diving-board. Sooner or later this will end in tears; my heart leaps in anticipation. “Is this seat taken?” I ask you. The trouble with beginnings is that you only see them for what they are in the rear-view mirror.
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Jan 8, 2024 04:55
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Squeeking in under the wire.
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Jan 20, 2024 03:54
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Vinegar and Honey 1498 words The last moon of the year was always a troublesome time in Fell’s Hollow. It was in those long, dark hours of the dying year that the strangeness of the Hollow stretched its arms across the valley; a thick, creeping mist wound through the packed-earth streets and unglazed windows of the town. The folk stepped lively on their business, hoods raised against the cold and damp, lanterns blazing against the gloom. Folk found as little cause to have business as they could manage, and went about it quick as was seemly. The heavy-wooded hills about the town pressed in in the snow-glazed solstice shadows, choking the Hollow in silver and sable. The hearth of Fell’s Rest was big enough to fit a hog, and the fire roared hot enough to roast one. The ancient oak timbers drank and held the heat and shone like burnished bronze. The taproom was filled with the soft susurrus of low conversation and the clatter of tableware as townsfolk ate, drank, and talked, holding the long night at bay with strained laughter and raised tankards. That was the way of things in those days. Fell’s Hollow rested at the edge of the world. Beyond the borders of its valley the forest waited: heavy, and dark, and old beyond measure. Old Raemond held court at the bar, as he always did on long nights, brandishing a foaming cup like a king would his scepter. He was in full swing, as was his way on long nights, telling a story old as the hills. “..and though the King of the Mists howled and cursed him, and fought with all his arts against him, Callum Fell knew the King’s true name, and so he could not break the bonds laid upon him. Fell bound his power against him and settled the last of the white stones. ‘This marks the border between our lands,’ he said, ‘As long as my power lasts and my descendants keep faith you shall not escape this ban, and they shall live in peace beyond your forest.’ The King could do nothing but bow his head and accept defeat. And that is how Fell’s Hollow came to be, and why we wear our white stones and iron circles, in memory of Callum’s wit and will.” Raemond’s audience of children cheered and begged for more stories as their parents ushered them into coats and hats to go home. Raemond felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down. It was Juachim, the miller’s son. “M. Raemond, your story… was it true? Did it really happen that way, or is it just a fable like the Fox and the Mouse?” Raemond laughed, “Of course it happened, boy. My father told it to me, and his father to him, and so on back right to the days of Fell himself. A hundred generations of Hollow-men can’t be wrong, eh?” There was a loud, nasal snort from nearer the tavern’s door. Raemond turned his great, hairy head with a frown. It deepend when he saw the pinched face of Rearden, the preacher. “Don’t listen to him, boy,” the preacher sneered. Rearden’s voice was like the man himself: as thin, and straight, tightly wound as a fiddle-string. “‘Tis naught but the self-aggrandizing superstition of local lore-men, using their clever tongues to make a living off the generosity of earnest, God-fearing folk.” Raemond’s face began to flush darker, and not merely with drink. He’d never liked the God-botherer, not since he’d come to town these ten years past. He’d been trained in the Sacristy in the capital, but he’d been born in Rannish-town. The Hollow-men had no love for their distant neighbors: everyone knew that folk from that side of the river didn’t know their arse from their elbows in matters of lore. “Indeed,” the preacher warbled on, “It is only by the grace of God and our devotion to Him that this parish is spared the whims of the forest’s mists and shadows. Half-remembered culture heroes and their heathen ways will not protect your body or soul, young ones.” The parents hurried their charges along, no one wanted the children to see the preacher get his nose bloodied if the larger man decided to take offense. Raemond shifted his bulk off of his stool and reared to his full height, drawing in breath like a bellows to bellow at the narrow priest. His train of thought was interrupted by a sound. It wasn’t a large sound or a loud one, just a soft “Hmph.” But some sounds are much louder than their volume. A narrow, angular figure shuffled through the door, gently closing it behind her. A puff of thick mist, trapped by the closing door, sublimated in the warm light. The tap of a cane preceded the figure’s travel across the floor of the now-quiet tavern. There were a few mutters from the departing families: “G’night, Granny.” “Happy New Year, Ms. Gammage.” She fixed a gaze on Raemond and smiled a thin, tired smile. “You just set yourself down, young Raemond, and have another drink. Keep the cold out of you, it will. No use starting trouble with the young preacher.” The old storyteller sat, abashed as a boy caught stealing sweets, and waved at the landlord for another ale. Granny Gammage smiled at him, too, and asked him “Do you have my parcel ready, Donal?” “Aye Granny, same as every year,” he said, smiling back. It always did good to smile at Granny. The alternative didn’t bear thinking on. He piled a jar of brown sugar, half-a-dozen apples, a jar of honey, and a pat of butter into a basket and handed it over the bar, waving away the coins the old woman offered him. She smiled and wished him a Happy New Year as she shuffled out into the night. Rearden sneered. “I can think of no better evidence for this town’s Godless dissolution than the way you all dote on that old woman. No wonder you’re bedeviled with curses and creatures, that you support layabout spinsters; who, I might add, I’ve never seen at services.” The Sacristy taught its priests many things, and Rearden had studied many of them well, but he had clearly missed the lessons on how to read a room. Raemond was back on his feet, towering above the priest. Donal had come around from behind the bar, also scowling. “I think you’ve had enough tonight, Rearden,” he said, “You best get back home before the moon goes down. It’s an unsafe time, even for a Godly man.” Rearden glanced around, but found only stony faces devoid of sympathy. He mustered what dignity he could and stepped into the night. The town’s streets were deserted, empty but for the dark and mist. He trudged home, sullenly furious at the disrespect to his office and, therefore, to God. He noticed too late the mist thickening, growing spiney, fluted limbs and an insectoid face, reaching for him with clammy claws. He stumbled backwards, screams dying in his throat. He waved a hand in front of him, trying to disperse the mist. His hand passed through it and came away bloody, covered in stinging cuts. He fell, raised his arms, and tried to think of a warding prayer he’d learned in Sacristy. Nothing came to him. And then there was stillness. The monster looked above him and slowly backed away, dispersing into the night. Rearden huddled in the street, hearing nothing but his own breathing and the soft tap of a cane on frozen earth, moving slowly west towards the town’s edge. Granny Gammage bustled about her kitchen in the cottage closest to the forest. From the living room she could see the last of the white stones that marked the town’s border. Her home was old. Her great-aunt had left it to her, as her great-aunt had to her, and so on back farther than memory could reveal. There’d always been a woman like her in a cottage like this, doing the necessary work to keep the forest and town safe from one another. She reached into the iron stove with mitted hands and pulled out a fresh apple pie, rich with brown sugar. She carefully cut a slice from it and put it on a fine porcelain plate, which she put on a wooden tray next to a cup of tea sweetened with honey. She walked over to the window facing the forest and put the tray on the sill. After a short time a pair of diaphanous hands and slender, foggy arms lifted it away, back into the waiting dark. It would be returned by morning. It always was. Granny Gammage lit her pipe and sat down in her chair by the stove. Let the blustering men-folk of the town argue about their heroes and gods. Let them speak of wit and will and the church’s iron laws. The Gammage women have always known you catch more flies with honey.
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Jan 22, 2024 04:56
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Alright I'm in. Flash me.
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Feb 14, 2024 17:03
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Familiar Flash: you and your sister live in a lemon world 1500 words It’s always awkward seeing an ex. Doubly so when they left you without a word, then reach out years later and ask to meet. The dining room is cool and dim. Spread out before us through the window is a sloping lawn and a foreboding wall of forest. We sit at a dark wooden table, hands not quite touching, and talk a lot about very little. We step like dancers on a minefield, each movement careful not to trip something explosive. The sunlight slants towards late afternoon. We run out of fripperies and fluff. A moment of quiet stretches dangerously. I catch myself marveling at you, so strange and so familiar. There are whorls of dark blue ink at your collarbone and shoulder, half-hidden beneath a white sundress. There are new planes to your face, new wrinkles around the eyes and the corners of the mouth. But it’s the same mouth, wide and thin-lipped and smiling a sly, gentle smile. And they’re the same earth-and-amber eyes: large, luminous and lively as birdsong. You’ve cut your hair; it falls in dark, feathered waves down to your chin. How have I never noticed the curve of your neck? “So…” I say. “So…” you agree. “I assume you’re wondering if I reached out for more than a chat about old friends” “The question’s crossed my mind. This seems like it could have been a phone-call and saved me a long drive.” You hold my eyes a heartbeat past comfort. “No, it couldn’t have. I have things I want to say, and I owe it to you to say them to your face.” “Yeah,” I say, breaking the too-long gaze, “I have questions-” and I nearly jump out of my chair as something hits my shins. It’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen, charcoal gray and glowering at me with eyes the color of Cherenkov radiation. “Jesus Christ, Moll. The hell is that?” Your laugh hasn’t changed, clear and bright as a struck wineglass, and your grin is positively impish. “That’s Grimmy. Ignore him, he’s just hungry.” Grimmy stalks over to your chair and condescends to have his ears scritched. “But it’s not supper time yet, no it’s not. Who’s my greedy little boy?” you coo at him in the voice adults reserve for pets and babies. Grimmy slinks away, pausing to glance over his shoulder and give me an uncomfortably knowing look. We adjourn to the kitchen to fix a simple meal: summer salad, soup, crusty bread. I open a bottle of wine; it’s bright and sharp as a bottleful of razors. “Since when do you have pets?” “A few years now. My sister gave him to me.” That leaves me slack-jawed, sputtering. “Since when do you have a sister?!” “My whole life. But we met a few years ago, not long after… you know. Half sister, really. She’s helped me with… a lot of things. She’s around here somewhere. I’d love you to meet her, but she’s shy around strangers.” “Am I a stranger?” You offer me a measured look. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” We move ourselves back to the dining room, now shrouded in evening gloam and bloodied by the setting sun. The floodgates open. I talk about how hurt I was, about the messages and letters I sent, fruitlessly. I apologize for their increasing bitterness. You accept it with grace. The wine makes it easier. I catch a glimpse by the door of long limbs, hair and clothes the color of ripe grain. “That’s Maeve.” you say “I’m sure she’ll come meet you when she’s ready.” “So I’m still a stranger, then?” I know as soon as I say it that it was wrong; too harsh, too honest. “C’mon Charles, don’t be lovely.” You toy with your wine and stare at your grass-stained feet. “No, I think I will. So far I’ve been the one doing all the apologizing. I think it’s your turn. So tell me, what happened? And why did I have to wait three years and drive to the loving Berkshires to ask?” Silence stretches. “I’m sorry,” you sigh. There’s a distance between us greater than the length of a table. “I know it was wrong, that I… handled things badly. It’s just… There were things I needed to do, that I wanted to become and I couldn’t if I stayed. I wanted more than a two-bed apartment and a dog, I needed more to look forward to than maybe starting a family if you ever sold that novel. So I left, and I’m not sorry about that. But I’m sorry about how I did it.” You silently freshen your glass. I can feel pieces of me unwinding in my chest, parts of my heart and stomach falling away. I see you anew. It’s humbling. But the anger’s not gone. “So why couldn’t you just tell me that? I’d have listened.” “I know, that’s the problem. You’re so sure. Of everything. If I’d tried to say this then we’d have talked and you’d have listened, wanted to help, and I’d have stayed.” “And would that be so bad?” “Yes.” There it is: flat, simple, unavoidable. You had to get away from me to grow. It rips me up inside, but I accept it. “Ok, so why all this?” I wave a hand to encompass us, the house, the forest beyond the window. “Because I miss you. I hurt a lot of people back then and now I’m trying to make amends. For what it’s worth. I’ve changed. More than you know.” “I’ve noticed. It looks good on you.” “Thank you,” you blush. “And this is part of that, of my journey of becoming. Maeve thinks it’ll be good for me.” “So where do we go from here?” You finish the wine and stand. That smile is back, unsettling and tantalizing. “You wanna go for a walk?” I do. The moonlight’s enough for us to wind our way through branch and bole. The shadows are rich sable, the air smells of loam. It rains briefly, warm and sudden. I scramble under a tree, but you just laugh like a bell and dance in the rain. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. More than ever I can see the changes in you. That vitality, that urge to revel in the world around you. It’s unfamiliar. Was it always there and I just didn’t see it? The clouds pass and you stand in the glade, dress clinging and translucent. Moonlight through the leaves turns your skin to bottle-glass. “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.” And then you’re skipping away into the dark as I scramble to follow. After a time we arrive at a wide clearing. In its center is a pole with a white block atop it. You take my hand and walk over to it. Your skin is damp and soft as a sigh. “What’s this?” “A salt lick. Deer and other animals lap at it for salt and minerals.” you point to a denser area of trees and undergrowth. “That’s a hunter’s blind. They hide there and when a buck comes to the lick, they shoot it.” “That’s horrible.” “No. It’s a part of the balance. We offer something to them and take in return. Life for life. And predation keeps the herd healthy. It seems cruel, but in the broader view it benefits everyone.” “I doubt the deer feels that way. Did you bring me here for an ecology lesson?” “No.” you whisper and I realize how close we are. Your arm’s around my waist, pulling us closer. I bring my hand up to brush hair from your face and you draw my lips to yours. Your mouth tastes like wine, citrus, and petrichor. It’s a long, blissful moment, drawn out like the final note of a song. It ends with a click and the feel of metal around my wrist. You slip from my grasp and I look down at the handcuff holding me in place. “Molly, what the gently caress?” There's rustling from the hunter’s blind. A tall, whip-thin figure steps into view. Her hair and clothes are the color of ripened grain, her eyes ancient as the hills. Her gaze feels like the business end of a rifle scope. “Moll, what the gently caress are you doing? This isn’t funny.” “I know. I’m sorry.” You look at the newcomer, Maeve. “Do we have to? Really?” “Yes, sweetling,” she purrs like honey and distant thunder. “I know it hurts, but weakness will hurt you more where we’re going. You’re becoming something greater, and that means shedding old things.” “Molly, I’m serious. Tell your crazy sister to gently caress off, let me go.” “I’m sorry Charles.” You have the grace to meet my eyes before you turn and walk into the woods. A form stalks into the clearing. It’s a shadow: huge and powerful; charcoal gray with Cherenkov eyes. I lean against the pole and laugh. You haven’t changed a bit.
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Feb 19, 2024 05:48
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I will take up this burden
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Feb 24, 2024 19:02
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Crits for Week 603 To reiterate Beef's point: the field may have been light this week, but it was undoubtedly very strong. I feel like in a less stacked week any one of these could have taken a spot on the podium. Good job, everyone. But on to specifics. 17738 by Black Griffon I dearly love the epistolary as a story-telling format and believe it to be criminally underused. And you, my friend, have crafted a very fine bit of epistolary short fiction. For the most part each narrator has a distinct voice and a clear web of relationships between one another and the story's unseen subject. The fact that we never really see or directly interact with Anton is, I feel, a very clever choice that builds up a clear sense of the uncanny. The framing of the narrative as backward-facing, so that we see the development of our relationships and the changing perceptions of Anton, is quite clever as well. The (I think) supernatural elements of the story are left as broad sketches and that works, especially given the constraints of the word count. Your prose is clean and efficient, wasting neither time nor effort, while elegantly building a world and populating it. The sense of dread that builds really works for me. The main issues I have are that the voices of the warden and doctor could be a bit more distinct, but what kept you off the podium was a loseness in approaching the week's prompt. Like I said, I love a good epistolary, and if that had been the subject this could easily have won. But it's not a clear story-in-a-story, it's a story told through snippets of other people's thoughts. In a week this small and stacked I'm afraid that was enough to dock you. Interstellar Visions III: Guest-editor's Notes by Obliterati This one was really funny, and I give you a lot of props for it because humor is hard to do, especially in a micro-fiction format. I liked all the little sketches we get of the submitted stories, with just enough detail that we can infer their style and genre without getting weighed down in specifics. I would read any of them. The worldbuilding is very good, too. There's a lot of proper nouns and alien species thrown at us in a fairly barebones way, but I didn't feel like that was a bad thing, you get enough of a sense of what they are and how they relate to one another that their fire-and-forget nature doesn't bother me. But what really elevates this piece is the sense of dread that hangs just outside the humor. We never get a very good look at it, and I think that's the right choice, but it underpins and adds stakes to what would otherwise be a cute, fluffy piece of satire on editorial publishing politics. But, again, it doesn't really cleave to the prompt. I see what you were going for with the handful of stories being breezily commented on, but they never gain the depth that I would really call them framed stories. And I'm not sure I would want to, because then you'd have to cut some of the in-world political commentary and the aforementioned dread. I think if you'd cut the field down to 2 or maybe 3 stories and delved a little deeper into them it would have resonated more with the theme this week, and then we'd have had a real bear of a time picking winners. Frame Shift by Thranguy Imaginatively ambitions and deftly crafted with some extremely cool ideas, this was right on the razor thing margin between win and HM. I really love the concept of AI as a sort of companion-cum-medical-equipment, and making him and his partner hardboiled future PIs? Exquisite. There's a lot of really cool worldbuilding (a theme this week) that's told in a very economical fashion. It doesn't feel like there's a single word wasted. The framing device of the Digilect (great term, btw) scanning over its own memories, and the commentary on the nature of self-narrative, were really good, at the top. We got a nice sketch of a world, and how the Digilect technology shapes it, that feels lived in and believable. The place I kind of felt let down was the ending. Those last two sentence really drop a bombshell and then walk away from it. I read this one several times trying to find some bit of subtext or context that would make the very breezy implication that our narrator-intelligence killed Stan feel earned, but I couldn't find it. There's clear foreshadowing of the concept when it's mentioned both how easy it is for a Rider Digilect to kill its host and how our narrator, specifically, could keep Stan's body funcitoning indefinitely after brain-death, but there's no sense of the thing as a malicious actor until the very end when we find it may well be an extremely malicious one. I'm perfectly willing to concede that maybe I'm just to thick to get it, but the way it recontextualizes the story and brings into question the reliability of our narrator at the last possible second, with no real payoff, left me cold. It's a bit of a sour note, especially because if you'd just left those two sentences off and let the story stand on its own then I think this would have been a clear winner. As it is it feels like it wanted a few hundred more words to build on the unreliable narrator conceit, or else that it's begging for a second chapter. Straight on Until Morning by beep beep car is go Another story about AI-human relations with a clear and compelling nested narrative. Something of a theme, and I'm not mad about it. I think this one was the best unvarnished attempt at iterating on the prompt, and that's a big part of why it won. Both our framing device and our nested story are clearly drawn and offer some excellent detail and worldbuilding. Person of Silicon is another great alternative term for AI, I like it a lot. I thought you did quite a good job letting us know what a Person of Silicon is and how they think without dumping a lot of exposition, which is a deft feat and an absolute necessity in the format. There's a really interesting tension between the emotional weight of the nested story and the breeziness with which it's told by Gord and Telemachus, even being used as a ploy to win a game of future-Warhammer. At first I wasn't sure I liked that, because I felt like the core strength of the piece was in the mood of joyous melancholy we get from SunFire's tale. The way the piece just kind of ends initially left me cold after the understated intensity of a tale about how a passionate intelligence chose a form of exile-cum-suicide rather than submit themselves to a system they felt unjust. But as I've been sitting with it I think I've come around. The very blase attitude does a lot to tell us both about how Gord and Telemachus, and by extention People of Silicon at large, think about and relate to the world. The whole thing could use a bit of polish, there's some clunky phrases and a few switches between past and present tense, but overall this was a very clear and interesting piece of science fiction that cleaved best to the prompt out of the entire field. You've earned your spot on the throne.
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Feb 27, 2024 00:29
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Yeah alright, gently caress me up with all them flashes
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Feb 27, 2024 16:33
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Week 604: SPAAAAAAACE! Stealing Hearts Flashrules: -Mood: Volatile -Situation: Something Stolen -Lyric: You gotta spend some time with me (I Will Possess Your Heart, Death Cab for Cutie) 2209 words It’s a curious feeling, holding the heart of a god. Even in its containment unit I can feel it vibrating in rhythm with the pulse of creation. There are many who’d say it’s impossible to liberate the heart of Zan-ji from its singularity-body and sneak it past a half-dozen pilgrim factions on the holiest day of a dozen faith’s calendars. None of them are Ada Evenstar, the Fox of Antares. Impossibility’s never bothered me. The temple complex of Zan-ji is a vast sphere thousands of kilometers across, wrapped in glittering forcefields and criss-crossed with a spider-web of catwalks, platforms, and promenades spun from diamond and steel, all hanging like a jewel in the vast gulf of interstellar space. At its center rests the body of Zan-ji, the Many-Faceted God: an impossibly small space-time singularity, spewing forth grace and Hawking radiation. The only way in or out, and the only practical way to traverse its immense volume, are farcasters: circles and arches of mirror-metal and glimmering air. I’ve plotted my route carefully: three quick jumps across the complex will take me to an egress portal, this one to Ajax Minoris. The client’s arranged a handoff in the Grand Market where I can exchange the heart for a king’s ransom in computronium. I’m gliding my way through a crowd of chanting monks wearing the mauve robes of the Theravada Papacy, containment unit disguised as an offering urn, when I become aware of a presence at my elbow, moving with me in tandem. Tall, robed in mauve, feline and feminine and radiating strength. She turns a gray-furred face in my direction and smiles a predator’s grin. “If you surrender the heart I will consider letting you leave,” she purrs.There’s something familiar about her. The multi-spectrum sensor suite wrapped around my nervous system is frantically collating data, trying to match pheromone profiles, speech patterns, entanglement signatures. Nothing’s registering, but a wise thief trusts her instincts. “And if I don’t?” I flash her my most infuriating smile. “Then I will break you in my hands, bind you in star-stuff, and drag you from this place by your hair.” Her glare is as dark as the starscape behind her. “Mmmm, promises promises. You know, it’s customary to buy a girl a drink before you get flirty.” She seizes my wrist in an iron grip. Looking down I can see the silver tattoos of the Justicars of Kalen, hunter-fanatics and the galaxy’s premier self-appointed lawmen. poo poo. “You think it amusing to be dragged before the Turbulent Courts for judgment? Do you think they will be kind to you after your trip through the Pantokrator’s palace?” “Hah! Yeah, that was a fun one.” My laughter draws disapproving stares from the monks. “Fun? Desecrating the sanctum of an anointed star-king is fun to you?” She pulls me along, hurrying us to the ‘caster. “Yeah, it was a great first date.” “Then why did your accomplice betray you to me?” “Second date didn’t go as well.” “I am unsurprised. I see no way anyone could trust one of your duplicitous excrescence.” “Aww, that’s not fair, pet. You should get to know me better, I’m really quite fun.” Gotta keep needling her. Fanatics can’t stand mockery and anger makes you stupid. “I am not your ‘pet.’ I am Esara the Huntress and I know everything about you, Ada Silver-tongue.” And that’s when it twigs for me. I know where I’ve seen her. “You were my tail on Bucephalus!” “And Matrim, and Kal’Aklesh.” My esteem rises another notch. Kal’Aklesh was the closest scrape I’ve had since I was a stripling, newly offworld and still sick from my first set of augments. Flattering to know you’re being hunted by the best. “I’ve shadowed you across light-years, learned every quirk and mannerism and weapon in your arsenal. And now *I have you*.” “Well then I guess you know I’m about to do this-” I say as I deploy an anti-friction field, slip from her grasp, vault over the handrail of the catwalk and fall into empty air. The shock on her face is worth as much as the god-heart. There are those who’d say it’s crazy to leap into the unstable gravitational eddies of a black hole, where down is a subjective point of view and a wrong twist of the hips can see you crushed like a grape. Those people aren’t Clever Ada, the Magpie Princess, who has geometric CPUs and attention co-processors wired to her occipital lobe, and always always has a back-up plan. The ride down’s rough, like being tossed in a whitewater rapid, disoriented by the spinning starfield outside the complex’s bubble. The landing’s worse. It’d kill a lesser woman, but I’m very literally built different. Titanium-laced bones and carbon-mesh enhanced muscles absorb the shock and I roll to my feet reaching for the controller at my belt that will reprogram the newmatter of my robe to blend with my new fellows. My hand finds nothing but cord. This is bad. Zan-ji is the focus of a dozen different faiths, all of whom consider the others heretics and blasphemers. Pilgrimage to the temple is a complex affair governed by strict rules and protocols to keep the belligerent god-botherers separate-but-equal, emphasis on separate. Without a variable disguise this simple jaunt gets a whole lot dicier. I think I’ve got a good excuse lined up when I feel another impact behind me. The crazy bitch jumped too. Sometimes frustration and respect both taste like bile. No time to worry about that. This platform is currently held by the Sword-Saints of Ytre and they’re fingering their eponymous blades at what they see as an invasion by heretics. The crowd’s too thick and too hostile to push through. I think about a complex sequence of shapes and push hard against a molar with my tongue. There’s a soft pop as one of the two batteries at the base of my spine dumps its charge into the suspensor network laced into my limbs. A quick hop-skip and I’m soaring over gray-clad swordsmen towards the next arch. I land lightly and use the last of the charge to tase a Sword-saint and relieve him of his blade. I turn to deliver a trademark bon mot only to see Esara bounding across the heads of the crowd like a teenager crowdsurfing at a concert. “STOP HER!” she yowls. “SHE’S STOLEN THE GOD-HEART!” Thousands of eyes turn towards us. gently caress. I turn and book it through the ‘caster. There’s a soft lurch and sensation of falling, almost routine enough to ignore. The judicious application of elbows and brandished sword part the new crowd enough that I can squeeze through, pushing toward the next gate. Sensors detect anger pheromones and index the growing clamor against language databases of violence and cursing. The mood’s souring: faithful of rival conclaves, confused and angry, are turning on each other. Targeting matrices in my eyes start spooling up, gauging threats and vectors. I start a jerky run towards the other end of the catwalk. I can feel the tachyon surge as the ‘caster behind me activates. Esara bellows curses. A clattering of sandals tells me she’s press-ganged the Sword-Saints and we’re about to have an impromptu crusade on our hands. The catwalk around me clears as pilgrims run, either to escape or to grapple with their rivals. I try to join those fleeing, but get knocked near senseless by a thrown devotional urn, identical to my own. I take a tumble, gear scattering around me, but gyrostablizers compensate for the sway and I scoop up my sword and both urns. I have no idea which is which. The scrape of claw on steel tells me I’m out of time to run. I spin and thrust. She meets my attack with effortless grace. We exchange a dozen blows in a heartbeat, cut and thrust, feint and parry, delicate as a waltz. She’s stronger than me, all muscle and sinew and fury, a storm in gray fur and bright teeth. Beautiful. “I see you’ve studied your Capo Ferro,” she growls, dipping her body low for an upward thrust. She gets my boot in her face for the trouble. “Who the gently caress is Capo Ferro?” But turnabout’s fair play and she sweeps my feet out from under me, sending us both spilling to the deck and scattering the two urns. We lock eyes for an instant before we each leap and seize one. “You’re sure you don’t want to just let me go with the heart? We could split the payout, maybe you could take a nice vacation to unwind?” I taunt her as we circle each other, blades flashing, the clash near-inaudible around the growing clamor of warring pilgrims. “I would rather eat my own entrails,” she snarls. “Why not surrender to me, the cells in my ship are quite comfortable.” She leaps over my head, lands between me and the ‘caster, all muscle and lashing tail, and bright green eyes. I won’t say the offer’s not tempting. But I’m Ada the Bold, and I do have a reputation to maintain. I feint high and copy her leg-sweeping trick, then dive over her as she falls. But that drat tail catches my ankle and I land full on my face, the urn skittering away over the edge of the promenade. I scramble after it and throw myself over the side, again. As I snatch the urn from the air I reflect that while a little black dress is nice, a girl’s best friend is the grappling hook in her arm. Always have a back-up plan. I let my momentum carry me all the way under and around the promenade, releasing the cable just-so to send me arcing through the ‘caster. I try to lose her in the erupting holy war of the next platform, but she’s amazing. We circle each other, dodging between knots of new-minted jihadists, playing cat and mouse, trying to maneuver one another towards or away from the next shining arch. We cross blades again, slammed close enough by the tides of combat to hear each other over the din. “You are a worthy opponent, thief, but you cannot best me. Hand over your urn, you can’t take mine and you can’t flee not knowing which one you have.” “Oh darling, I thought you knew me. I'm a degenerate gambler.” I shove her back and sprint for the ‘caster-arch. She hurls her sword like a javelin but my proximity sensors warn me in time. My dodge-roll leaves two pilgrims skewered and falling over the side, but their clothes mark them as Omni-Martyrs of Kor’Ghash so that’s alright. Several more go to paradise as Esara claws her way through them, but I’m still ahead of her through the arch. The egress platform is in pandemonium, priests and pilgrims locked in combat. It’s getting harder and harder to dodge knots of fighting forms as I make a painfully circuitous route to the egress portal. I can sense her eyes on me before I see her, I know the impact’s coming before it hits. The sword skitters out of my hand. Claws slide through my side, soft as a kiss. We go tumbling together and this time she gets the better of it, landing a-straddle of me, hand at my throat, raising her urn to bash my head open. “In the ancient watchcry of my profession: you’re nicked, chum.” “In the ancient motto of mine: up yours, copper.” And I pop the other battery. Time slows to a blue-shifted crawl. I hate doing this, it’s absolute hell on the neuro-musclar system and the crash always hurts. But needs must, I suppose. I wriggle free of her grasp, dislocating my joints as necessary. A timer in the corner of my eye ticks down the subjective seconds I have left. There’s not many of them, but I still take a few to study her. The strength, the poise, the power. Have I ever been the subject of such passion, such obsessive desire? It’s intoxicating. I could just take the other urn, leave her empty handed and humiliated. Time’s short, but there’s enough of it. But where’s the fun in that? I settle for swapping them. Monty Haul never goes out of style. Color drains from the world and time resumes its normal flow as I stagger up to the egress-caster, hand holding my shredded side closed. The nanofactories in my blood are sluggish. Something in her claws? Clever and pretty. She spots me as she’s carried away on the tide of sectarian violence. She rips open her urn and reveals a diamond the size of a fist, burning with white fire. Worthless junk. I can’t tell if her expression is a snarl or a smile. I could get away clean. I am Ada Star-thief: I’ve bedded gods, killed kings, and stolen futures from the quantum foam. But sometimes I’m very stupid about women. I deactivate my personal force-shields, ident scramblers, and variable bio-signatures and deliberately place a bloody handprint, my real handprint, undisguised, on the mirror-finished metal of the portal. It’s a stupid risk, utterly unbecoming of a professional; a taunt, a provocation. An offer. I’m not the only one who’s stolen a heart today.
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Mar 4, 2024 04:22
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Week 605: Year of the Dragon Chinese New Year has just come and gone and we're back to the Year of the Dragon, which happens to be the birthsign for myself and Thunderdome. So this week I want ya'll to write me stories about dragons. It doesn't have to be fantasy, you can be as literal or metaphorical with it as you want, use any interpretation of, or association with, the draconic, but by God there had better Be Dragons Here. Flash Rule: I don't have a super coherent theme, but if you want flashrules you can request a story beat/archetype, a song, or a picture. You can request up to two, and each one will give you +250 words. Word Limit: 1500 ( up to +500 for flash rule) Sign-up Deadline: 11:59pm EST on Friday, March 8th Submission Deadline: 11:59 EST on Sunday, March 10th Judges Slightly Lions Chernobyl Princess You? Entrants Beep-beep car is go (Flash: A Stranger Comes to Town) Black Griffon (Flash: The Crooked and the Cradle by the Crane Wives) Thranguy (Flash: Prowl Great Cain by the Mountain Goats//A picture of a totally normal raccoon) Ceighk (Flash: Wine and Wheat- Madds Buckley) My Shark Waifu Curlingiron Chairchucker Slightly Lions fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Mar 11, 2024 |
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Mar 4, 2024 23:54
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beep-beep car is go posted:In and flash please. Flash: A Stranger Comes to Town Black Griffon posted:yea blind me Flash: The Crooked and the Cradle
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Mar 5, 2024 00:19
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Thranguy posted:In, flash song and picture.  Prowl Great Cain- The Mountain Goats
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Mar 6, 2024 04:28
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Quote is not edit
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Mar 6, 2024 04:30
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Ceighk posted:in and song please Wine and Wheat- Madds Buckley
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Mar 6, 2024 16:05
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24 hours til sign ups close!
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Mar 8, 2024 06:59
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Sign-ups are closed!
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Mar 9, 2024 06:53
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Edit: we're having a short grace period for Daylight Savings, submissions will close in the morning
Slightly Lions fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Mar 11, 2024 |
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Mar 11, 2024 05:24
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Week 605: Judgement Good job everyone! Seven stories, all of which had a lot to recommend them, and no failures. Give yourselves a pat on the collective back. In fact, because each story had something great about it, there are no negative metions this week. So that means we can just jump right to the good stuff. First, we've got two Honorable Mentions this week. First HM for Thranguy's Sovereign an energetic cyberpunk heist tale that had great worldbuilding and a lot of attitude. The second HM for curlingiron's Ash and Cinders a fractured fairytale brave enough to ask the question: what if Cinderella's godmother was a dragon? It featured a very strong narrative voice and great vibes. But we had to give the Win to Ceighk for Of the Red Dragon and the Women Clothed with the Sun, a deeply affecting tale about faith, fury, and love, executed with some really gorgeous prose. Take the throne, Ceighk, you earned it.
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Mar 12, 2024 03:00
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Crits for Week 605 Well done all. Here's some short crits, if I have time and energy later this week I may try a hand at some line crits because every one of these had bits that deserve special mention and discussion. -Love and Thunder by My Shark Waifuu The one where a hapless mayor gives marriage counseling to a pair of dragons Very unique take on the prompt. Prose is fine, there are a few banger lines and nice metaphors. I think the glimpses into the psychology of dragons are nice, but I would have liked to see a little more. Craig is a fun character, we get a pretty good picture of who he is very quickly, which I appreciate. The best part of this is the wry humor running underneath it, and the outsider’s perspective on the alien nature of dragons. They feel both recognizable but still inhuman and remote. There’s some pacing issues, I particularly think the beat where Craig returns to the village and has to run right back up again was probably unnecessary. But it salvages itself with the inherent absurdity of draconic make-up sex and a very cute button line. -Smoke and Cinders by curlingiron The one where Cinderella's fairy godmother is a dragon I love the whole "fractured fairytale" subgenre, and this is a fun one. The opening is really strong, even if it's three sentences stacked on top of each other with commas. I really like our narrator-protagonist, she has a very strong voice and the kind of obsessive internal monologue that I think fits a dragon. The prose is, largely, very very good. Could use another editing pass, but hey, that's thunderdome baby. The structure could use some work. It's all exposition, very little actually happens, but the ending is rock solid and appropriately menacing. Like several of the stories this week it’s a vibes piece, with most of the real action happening off screen, either before or after what we really see; but I can’t begrudge it too much because said vibes are immaculate. Very strong, easily earned an HM -Remembrance by Black Griffon The one where a dragon burns a dude's house down to rescue her child Prose is largely good, but I found the structure a little confusing at times. Really nice imagery throughout. Great use of the flash song, too. There's a story-wide lack of exposition that I actually quite appreciate. You've crafted a story with a lot of dense internal lore that doesn't get explained, but doesn't need to be. The stuff we see explains it for us. I would have liked a little more showing of Nava's early childhood with their mother and maybe some more on how/why they were taken. You had the word count to fit it and it would have given a little more context and punch to the self-sacrificing finale. It’s the second of our Vibes Pieces this week and the strength of those vibes carried it off despite a confusing structure. -Dragon Rider by Beep beep car is go The one where a dragon does post-apocalyptic tech support This one is really sweet. There's a very strong sense of being a 15 year old boy with a first crush. Baldwin feels immediate and believable. I love the sketched picture of a crumbling world and the way that people are struggling to adapt. You correctly surmised that in a ~2000 word story we don't need an explanation of why the world's passed on, we just need to live in it. Meredith is a nice character, competent, mysterious, unattainable for our narrator, but kind. I like that there's no attempt to explain why dragons exist in this world, they just do and that's cool. The whole thing is very homey, I liked spending time with Baldwin in his sleepy little mountain town. You can certainly argue that not a lot actually happens in this, but as I’ve mentioned already I do like a Vibes Piece, and I think TD generally underrates them. I like this one, high-tier. -Of the Red Dragon and the Women Clothed in the Sun by Ceighk The one where a girl saves her girlfriend from being sacrificed to a dragon and becomes a saint This is one of the best stories I’ve read for Thunderdome. Really strong, if a bit on the nose, in its use of the flash song. The prose is gorgeous, full of really rich imagery. I loved the exploration of Mary's faith and its clash with the entrenched power structures of the local church in the person of Father Thomas. With the prompt and the flash this could have very easily gone in a deeply cynical direction, and I’m sure it would have been fine, but the fact that it didn’t is a choice that I think really elevates it. By going to a more sincere place with it I think you found some really compelling things to say about faith, fury, and love. I like that it ends before the confrontation with the dragon, and that we never see the dragon on screen. Because the dragon itself isn't the point, what it represents is, and Mary's decision to stand in defiance of it and of the town and of the church, to believe that her love for Agnes and her faith in God are more important than any of those things is the climax of the story. Having some big, magic dragon-slaying battle would have honestly cheapened it. Really beautiful and some of these lines go incredibly hard, having a hard time finding any serious critiques. -Trickle Down Dragon by Chairchucker The one where dragons eat the rich This one edges pretty close to a political screed, but it's a screed I agree with and that fulfills the prompt, so I'm ok with it. There's a wry humor that I like here. Strong, attention-grabbing opening. Everything about it is perfectly serviceable, but I'm still left a little cold (haha). As much as I enjoy the idea of dragons eating or simply murdering the bloated plutocrats that have ruined our world, I wish there was more to it. In particular, I would say my biggest critique is the ending. It just kind of happens. I wanted more to it, or even just a pithy button line. It seems like a kind of on-the-nose morality play/wish fulfillment, but told with some considerable charm. By your own admission you had the idea, wrote it, and posted it in a few hours. I think if you’d held off for a day or two and put a coat of polish on then this could have been great. As it is, it’s merely fun, but shallow. -Sovereign by Thranguy The one that is Shadowrun I love Shadowrun and this is so Shadowrun that if I were more of a stickler you'd get a fanfiction DQ. That said, I like it a lot. There's a lot of energy and personality to it, and a delightfully confident world-building. Our narrator-protagonist feels like a realized person, the world feels lived in, the language is engaging. I think it has one too many principle characters, though. I feel like you could cut the wizard, roll some of his part into Derek, and focus down more on the brothers and their relationship. The opening’s an exposition dump, sure, but it’s told in a really strong narrative voice that makes it feel very natural and does a lot of tonal lifting. The ending is a nice coda that finishes it out in a really fun, punchy way. The dragon himself is appropriately menacing and has a lot of screen-presence, but also doesn’t overstay his welcome and lets a lot of the story’s weight be carried by our brothers and the tone of the world. It's a well-plotted, energetic magic-cyberpunk romp and an easy HM.
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Mar 12, 2024 04:00
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