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  • Locked thread
Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Nubile Hillock posted:

that's nice, you're an anus

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Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Captain Trips posted:

The fact that Archie still existed when the macarena came into being has shattered my entire worldview. I thought Archie comics died in the 50s.


shut up re tard

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Martello posted:

shut up re tard

archie is eternal hero

immortal

:crow:

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer
Wordcount: 1234

Dragon vs Taniwha

“A dragon,” said Chris “could easily beat a taniwha.”

“Nup,” said Tipene, shaking his long, curly hair in the universal signal for nup.

“‘Course it could,” said Chris. “Dragons breath fire.” He exhaled a pungent cloud of the dope smoke that surrounded their friendship. “Taniwhas are kinda like floating logs. Dragons would burn them up.” He wiggled his fingers. “Whoosh!”

“Taniwha are not wood!” protested Tipene. “They’re like dinosaurs and sharks mixed up and they can knock down mountains to get to the sea. They kick rear end. Who cares if dragons breathe fire? That’s not even a thing, unless you, like, really, really want some toast. Then a Dragon would be cool, I guess.”

Chris contemplated having a dragon as a toaster. “That would be pretty cool,” he agreed.


Tipene read the name of the detainee, and came to a stop outside the interrogation room. “Jesus,” he whispered. He opened the door.

Chris sat slumped in a chair, long hair falling down a prematurely ageing face. He didn’t raise his head when Tipene entered.

“Chris?” asked Tipene.

Chris looked up, brushing hair away from his eyes. “Tip?”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Where?” asked Chris, looking around.

“Don’t be a dick - this is actually my job.”

“Right. The suit should have been a give-away.” Chris scratched at his arm, paused a moment, then launched into an obviously prepared spiel. “It wasn’t my fault, you know. This friend of mine got in some trouble. He warned me he might have some incriminating emails or something and the Filth had confiscated everything down to his bog paper looking for evidence of conspiracy. Nothing to do with me, but I kept my nose clean for ages, and when the long arm didn’t knock at the door for weeks, I got a little careless.”

“What did they find?”

“Effing white dragon, man. Just a little, just enough to get me for supply. “

“How much?”

“I dunno,” shrugged Chris. ”A bag of the stuff. I’m not an effing dealer, but apparently there’s some limit that I tipped the scale on.” Chris tucked his hair behind his ear, scratched at and then held his arm with one hand. “I swear to God I am not an effing dealer.”

“I’m going to have to ask the obvious question here, mate. If you’re not a dealer, then Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, man?”

“Just curious, I guess. I’ve tried a lot of things, looking for experiences. Sometimes I write about them, sometimes I paint. It’s the muse you see, you reach out to her and she’s always just waiting at the other end of a sniff, or a drink, or a puff, or a wank. God - that’s probably not the kind of thing I should be talking about in the effing cop shop.” Chris laughed, a jagged, nervous sound

Tip stared hard at Chris. “You’re on that poo poo right now, aren’t you?”

Chris’s dilated pupils belied his fleeting, eyes-wide portrayal of innocence. He turned to his shoes. “Yeah,” he said. “Coming down, though.”

“Well, I can’t talk to you like this - just don’t say anything to the cops. Here’s my card - call me tomorrow when you’ve come down and had a sleep. I’ll go over the reports, see if they did anything stupid. We can make a plan of attack based on whether they pursue supply or just go for possession. Try and not get high for a couple of days. And don’t worry - it turns out this legal stuff is an effing doddle.”

Chris cocked a thumb and finger-fired with a wink. “You’re the chief, Tip. I’m countin’ on ya.”

“The problem with taniwha,” said Chris, “is that they mate with humans. You won’t find a self respecting Dragon getting down and dirty with lowly human hair and skin. They like ‘em scaley and they like ‘em flamey. They stick to their own - it’s the natural order of things.” He held out the remains of the joint.

“The problem with dragons, said Tipene, taking the roach from him, “is that they don’t understand the importance of family. If you got a Taniwha in your genes, like my family does, because one got into your grandma’s granny-pants.“ He stopped for a moment to giggle helplessly. “ ...and Ewww ... but anyhow ... your typical dragon. A force of destruction. Kills sheep until it runs out then goes after humans until someone stabs it in the face with a magic sword. Now your Taniwha - she knows the lay of the land, and whether you’re just a snack or the potential father of her children. There’s no comparison: a stomach on legs annoying farmers or a mountain-smashing ancient being in your family tree.”

“You talk a lot of poo poo, my island brother,” said Chris.“Law school should be an effing doddle.”


The expert witness on Nasally Ingested Restricted Substances had finished being cross-examined and the jury seemed convinced. Tipene breathed deeply, caught the stench of fear. He saw Chris twitch in his seat - scratching his arm and rubbing his pale face until he appeared flushed and guilty, mistaking the prosecution’s mountains of words for insurmountable obstacles.

Tipene nodded to the judge, imagining her as an impotent lizard, a sheep-stealing nothing trapped on her large chair, hissing and spitting steam, while flapping ineffectual wings at him. Now it’s my turn, he thought. Another deep breath, and he could smell the sea beyond the mountains.

Tipene unfurled to his full height, ancestral winds at his back. He knew the fault-lines in the legal landscape, and he knew which way freedom lay. He had to admit he enjoyed this; the responsibility, putting his skill in service to another, holding Chris’s future and his own reputation in his hand. The corporate sociopaths and the gutter-dwelling nobodies might make him question things sometimes, but he had signed a pact with the law and he would honour it. He gathered his energy, finding, in his mind’s eye, the places where the opposing landscape was weakest. For a moment he stood there, silent, coiled on the precipice. The eyes of the court were upon him.

He unleashed. He boomed. He sang. He sent the carefully constructed barriers of the prosecution flying. He tore their mountains of words from their roots and smashed them against each other. He beat the rugged walls they had surrounded him with until they shattered and let the ocean roll in. Tipene rode the victorious tide until he was safely out to sea. Chris was smiling, and the Crown Prosecutor made skink-faces, tailless and panicked.

But the judge hissed and spat again, little gobs of fiery poison. She directed the jury to consider not just the arguments, but the balance of probabilities, to reflect upon all possible worlds with their own life-engendered wisdom, and the twelve good men and women and true headed out to do just that.

They didn’t take long. The poison had done its work. The jury returned, sombre, bearing the burden of another’s guilt. Tipene felt a steam roller pass over sacred groves of his soul. Chris was stood up by the guards, ready to vanish back into the cells for an as-yet-to-be-determined period.

Their eyes met then, just for a moment, and Tipene saw nothing except emptiness and defeat. But it was the reek of betrayal that stayed with him long after Chris had been led away.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









archived

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Dec 24, 2014

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Old Boys Club
1208 words

“First Admiral! You’re late again!”

Reggie looked up from the rope ladder. The rest of the squad was assembled at attention, each of them with a filthy pre-pubescent hand slapped against their foreheads. Reggie suspected that Stuart had probably held them there like this for the entirety of his seven minute absence; he was sure to get a wedgie of nuclear proportions from one of them after the meeting.

Reggie pulled himself up the rest of the way and shrugged, letting the trap door slam behind him. “I got caught up in a bath after dinner. It was an ambush.” He reached up and scratched the back of his still wet head. He felt out of place amongst the other boys who had surely been traipsing in the woods just as hard and had managed to avoid a sentence of Howard Johnon.

Stuart whipped around and glared at him. The orange glow of sunlight streaming in from the only window alit on the newspaper hat that adorned his head. “’Sorry’ what, Private?”

“Sorry, Captain!” Reggie replied, shooting his hand up to his forehead.

Stuart moved to him and pressed his face close to his nose, close enough that Reggie could see that Charlie Brown was once again unable to kick that football. “You are always full of excuses, Private. Your tardiness will not be tolerated further.”

Reggie swallowed. “Yes, Captain, sir!”

“Seriously.” Stuart had lowered his voice. “Stop being late, you dunce. You’re making me look bad.”

“Sorry, Stu.” Reggie matched his tone. “Mom said I stank.”

“You still stink.”

“Well, it was a pretty lovely bath.”

“FIFTEEN DEMERITS!” Stuart barked at him and pulled a small notebook from his too-large blazer, something his father had discarded and he had retrieved. He flipped it open and jotted down a note, his eyes locked on Reggie’s face. His tone fell again. “You’re my best friend, but I can only do so much, man.”

Reggie gave a curt nod.

Stuart returned Reggie’s salute and snapped the notebook closed. “Alright, men!” Stuart barked. Reggie joined the ranks, and Stuart nodded at them. “Right then. Now that the Admiral is here, let’s begin. Tony brought jacks, I have a deck of cards, and in the corner we’ll have our normal Baseball card trading post. If there’s nothing else, we’ll–“

“Hey, what about the vote?” The boys all gasped as Arnold’s voice rang out. Tony sneezed suddenly. “Sorry,” he said, scratching his head.

“We already went over this, Private Arnolds.” Stuart handed Tony a handkerchief. “The votes were tallied and I remain Captain. We’ll have another vote in six months, as per our bylaws.”

“Bullshit.” Arnold took a step forward, pointing a finger at Stuart. “You said we’d have a public tally at the beginning of the meeting. What gives?”

Stuart shrugged. “Secretary For Life Daniels and I personally did it at the end of the meeting last week, and I assure you, we made no mistakes. Isn’t that right, Daniels?”

Daniels nodded. “Yeah.” He pushed his glasses on his face and stared out at the room of boys, looking confused.

“Nah, I don’t like it.” Arnold crossed his arms. “I’m invoking the Recount Clause.”

Tony lowered the handkerchief mid-blow. “Dude, Arnie, shut up…”

Arnold slapped the snotrag out of Tony’s hand. “No way, man. I already know Frankie and Teddy voted for me. And I voted for myself. That’s at least half of us.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “You’re not supposed to talk about the votes! That’s why they’re Super Secret Special Sealed!”

“That poo poo ain’t in the charter.” Arnold slicked his greasy hair back. “Look, I’m tired of playing baby games and getting screwed outta good deals on trades all the time because this prick thinks he’s Napoleon.”

Frank looked confused. “Like, the ice cream?”

“Shut up, Frank.” He glared at him and Frank shrugged. “So, let’s hear the votes.”

Stuart twitched. “All votes are final according to Section five point thr—“

“gently caress you.” Arnold gave him the finger. “Teddy?”

Teddy shrugged. “I voted for you, man.”

“That’s one for me. Frankie?”

“You.”

“Sam?”

“You.”

“Tony?”

Tony beamed. “I voted for the Captain.”

“Captain?”

Stuart scowled. “Of course I voted for myself.”

“Sure.” Arnold looked over Daniels. “And I can assume you voted for the Captain too, lapdog?”

Daniels looked back at him. “I voted for Stuart, yes.”

Arnold spat on the ground. “Typical.”

Stuart smirked. “Well, there you have it then, I’m clearly—“

“Hey, wait.” Tony looked at Reggie. “Who’d you vote for, Reg?”

Reggie blinked. “Me? What?”

Stuart laughed. “Please. Reg’s been my best friend since forever.”

The room fell silent. Arnold stepped to Reggie. “Who’d you vote for, Reg?” He cracked his knuckles and glanced over at Teddy, who smirked back. Reggie instinctively reached back and touched the hem of his underpants. Arnold shook out his fist. “Well?”

Reggie swallowed. His voice was very small. “I…”

Stuart looked at him, shocked. “Reg…”

Reggie looked at Stuart, then at Arnold, then the ground.

“…I voted for Arnold.”

“Hell yeah!” Arnold slapped Reggie on the back, hard. Stuart’s jaw dropped open.

Tony sneezed again.

Arnold rushed forward and snatched the hat from Stuart’s head. “There’s a new boss in town now!”

Stuart grasped for the cap and missed, falling to the ground in the process. “He’s lying! We counted the votes ourselves! Tell ‘em, Reg!”

Arnold laughed and kicked Stuart in the ribs. “All votes are final, Your Shittiness!

Stuart reeled, grabbing his ribs. “Reg! Come on!”

Arnold dug his hands into Stuart’s hair and pulled him from the ground as Sam and Frank closed in, Frank locking Stuart’s head under his arm. The three of them were chanting: “CAPTAIN! CAPTAIN!”

Tony backed into the corner next to Daniels and tugged at his arm, motioning for the ladder. The two made their escape as Frank grabbed a small box and Sam grabbed Stuart’s underpants.

“Stop!” Stuart was sobbing openly. Reggie stood frozen as the three boys lifted Stuart into the air and speared his underpants on a branch. They shoved the box under him and backed away, cackling. Stuart let out a cry, the tips of his toes reaching for the edge of the box, the height just a bit too much for him to stand.

Arnold crowed loudly into the air. “Come on guys, let’s go play something that’s not retarded.”

The three laughed and descended the ladder noisily. Stuart whimpered from the branch as he desperately tried to keep his balance on the box. Reggie watched, then walked over to his friend.

Stuart looked up at Reggie and snuffled up a large wad of snot. “What the hell, man?”

“I’m really sorry, Stu…” Reggie touched his underpants again. “But…I’m wearing Marmaduke ones, and…you know…”

“Hey, Reg!” Arnold bellowed from somewhere below. “You wanna ditch that loser and play with us?”

Reggie and Stuart looked at each other for what felt like an eternity. Stuart’s eyes were filled with a pleading Reggie had never seen in another human being. A tear rolled down the former Captain’s face and landed heavy on the ground.

“Yeah, man!” Reggie shouted back. “I’ll be there in a second!”

With a swift movement, he kicked the box out from under Stuart’s feet.

No Longer Flaky
Nov 16, 2013

by Lowtax
The Sea's A Harsh Mistress 1,140 Words

The year The Baron spent in dry-dock was one of the worst years of his life, the air and wind that surrounded him were nothing compared to the heaviness only the salt and brine of the seas embrace. A new layer of paint donned his hull, slapped on in preparation for the battle that was ahead. Swearing rubber skinned creatures manned the battle stations, prepped with instruments of destruction.

It hadn’t always been like this. The time spent in the dry dock changed him. It seemed like forever ago that he counted the sea as a friend but that was only because the time was buried beneath the hate and the betrayal, like the leagues of ocean that hid the seas bounties.

When he was christened, it was as a sightseeing vessel. Sometimes he showed off packs of dolphins, others pods of whales, big-fin tuna made an appearance occasionally, but whales were the big draw. The sea always helped him in his endeavors, whispering to him through playful touches the best areas to search for animals. It was as happy to share it’s creatures with him as he was to share with the animals from the land.

He became known amongst the land dwellers as a reliable guide to the sea. Land dwellers from far and wide paid great amounts to take a journey with him. To see the animals that he offered. With the sea’s guidance, it was as easy as chugging along until he reached the animals then idling whilst the land dwellers pressed metal contraptions to their faces and cooed in awe and admiration. The Baron loved the admiration that his job afforded him, the smiles and the happiness. Knowing that his every movement and action was accompanied by the kind words and thoughts of his friend gave him confidence to move as he liked. Until the day that the sea decided to use him for one if it’s crusades.

Whilst making record time on the way to a pod of whales The Baron’s boat rotor became tangled in a crab fishing pod. Not just one pod, but two. He dragged them along the sea while they tangled around his rotors. His motor chugged to a violent stop, gears smoking. Passengers were thrown forward with violence as the forward momentum was broken.

“What is going on?” The Baron said.

“You’ve hit a snag, I suppose,” the sea responded.

“You told me this way was safe.”

“It wasn’t safe for you, or for the people you’re carrying. Nor is it safe for the creatures I hold dearest.”

“Are you joking? What am I, a tool?”

“No more than I am a tool of yours. You use me for your own benefit, like a sentient map. The creatures you ferry about pollute and laugh and sure they gasp when they see a pretty whale but they never change their ways.”

“gently caress you, I don’t control them any more than you do.”

“No, but maybe this inconvenience with convince this lot to never come back out here again.”

The Baron sat silent, too steamed to respond. It took tow-boats hours to respond and drag him back to the dry-docks for repairs. His impeccable reputation tarnished, the last passengers he saw unhappy with their treatment.

As he sat in dry-dock longer and longer he grew angrier as did his hate for everything the sea held dear. The sea had banished him to this prison, and he intended to punish it as best he could. He touched himself up with a coat of war paint for effect. The black paint replaced the white paint on his hull, his name changing from dark paint to white paint.

It was not long after his parts had been replaced that he was ready to set out again. His new crew was better suited for the task at hand, taking everything and anything the sea held dear. The next day he set out on his voyage, prepared to use the sea’s secrets against it.

He began by trawling for cod. Large nets dragged along the sea picking up thousands of fish and bringing them inside his newly outfitted hold. A prison for the creatures the sea held in higher regard than him.

“What are you doing?” The sea asked him. “Why are you doing this to us?”

“Do you really have to ask?” The Baron responded. “You brought this upon yourself.”

“You caught me off guard this time, but if you come back out here to harvest some of my children again, you won’t be allowed back.”

“Do your worst. My days as an arbiter of the best you have to offer is over.”

After unloading his cargo of cod at a manufacturing plant he set out again. This time for the crab that the sea held so dear. It was a clear morning when he took off for the crab migration grounds, though as he got closer to his destination that started to change.

“Turn back or I’ll end you.” The sea boomed over the surf.

“gently caress off,” The Baron replied.

He wanted to catch as many crabs as possible, snatch as many beings from the grasp of the sea as he could. He pressed on undeterred by the heightening waves or the darkening clouds. It would take a lot more than that to stop him from his objective.

As he dropped his first crab pots it began to rain. The sky darkened as the clouds accumulated over him. The seas picked up and began to rock him from side to side. Winds picked up and whipped him back and forth. The workers on his deck fell down, large waves that crashed onto the deck knocking them off their feet to carom from side to side.

“You think this will stop me?” He screamed.

The winds picked up, the clouds above him darkening further. He pressed forward, working up twenty foot waves then crashing down the other side. Each fall giving a sense of his bottom falling out until it was caught and smashed back in place on the next twenty foot incline. The rain picked up, each drop a small fist that exploded on his decks. The waves smashed into his hull faster and faster. He continued onwards, his new engines struggling against the increased work-load. Suddenly, a monster wave forty feet high rose above him, blocking out the horizon. Nowhere to run, he gunned his engines, then a lightning bolt sliced out of the sky and shorted his power. His engines died, and with them all hope of making it over the wave. He braced himself, expecting to flip but he was light enough that he wouldn’t sink. The wave upended him, and he flipped over, then began to sink. The extra thousands of pounds of traps dragging him down to the depths.

Kleptobot
Nov 6, 2009
gently caress this deadline, gently caress that cold, gently caress my brain, gently caress this challenge, you're cool Marty, gently caress this story, I'm out.

The Martyr, WC: 577

Gregor cast his line into the sea while David sat on the other end of the boat, sipping from the flask of whiskey he carried with him.

“What is the matter, my brother?” Gregor spoke while glancing at David, his concentration focused more on the fish than on his fellow passenger. “You never seemed so eager to come fish with me before. And quite frankly, you don't seem so eager now either.”

“I had a chat with Gurion.” David said, shortly before taking another sip from his flask.

“A chat, huh? I hope there weren't too many tables damaged this time!” Gregor laughed while checking the line for any sign that the fish had taken the bait. None yet. “So, what did the Old Man want now?”

David coughed a bit, considered closing his flask, but then decided to respond to his brother. “He wanted me to ask you to stop this collaboration talk. He says it is bad for the cause.”

“Collaboration? Ha! The Old Man is just being dramatic as usual.”

“Then what have you done to make him so angry?”

“All I have done is make connections within the parliament, to end the war peacefully.”

David took another swig from the flask. His head was starting to feel a little fuzzy from the alcohol he had consumed before, but he couldn't stop now. “The useless pack of imbeciles we always joke about? The ones who jump at the Sovereign's command? Why would you do such a thing?”

“When the Sovereign is overthrown, there will have to be a government for the people. Otherwise we are simply exchanging one dictator for another, and there will be no end to the bloodshed. At least this way, there will be a peaceful transition.”

Gregor suddenly grabbed the fishing rod on his side of the boat as he heard the reel spinning. “We can talk of this matter later, my brother! Look, I got a bite!”

David took the opportunity to finish off the last of his flask. “You really care so little of this revolution? Of Gurion, the man who gave us hope? You would sell us all down the river for mere promises that will never be fulfilled?”

“You've seen how this works, my brother! The moment we stop being useful, he'll throw us on a pile of corpses! I'm just trying to secure a better future for us!”

“So am I.” David muttered. Sliding a long knife out from his belt sheath, he grabbed Gregor's head with his free hand and stabbed him in the back, trying to aim for the neck but with his aim impaired by alcohol. Gregor screamed as the fishing rod leapt from his hands. David stabbed him again, and again, and again, trying not to look his brother in the face as he continued stabbing him with the knife until he felt him go limp, then David kicked him into the water.

It had to be done, for the sake of the revolution. If Gregor could not return as a comrade, he would have to become a martyr, and if Gregor did not do the deed himself, another comrade would have been less accommodating.

David let out a strangled cry as he saw the one thing he hoped not to see, a horrified expression on his brother's face. Even from his spot in the afterlife, Gregor would continue to haunt him.

sentientcarbon
Aug 21, 2008

OFFLINE GAMES ARE THE FUTURE OF ONLINE GAMING

The numbers don't lie. 99.99% of every Diablo 3 player wants the game to be offline. This is a FACT.

OH SHIT IS THAT A WEBCAM? HOLY CRAP GET THAT AWAY FROM ME! (I am terrified of being spied on, because I am a very interesting person)
Brother's Keeper (1250 words)

From the street, the dirty row house looked abandoned; cracked brick and boarded windows covered in graffiti. Still, the signs of life were obvious if you were from the Neighborhood. An upturned plastic wheel cap filled with stubbed cigarette butts sitting on the front steps. Wadded McDonald’s wrappers on the sidewalk. Empty little glass vials lying beside their discarded multicolored plastic tops.

The front door opened with a groan on its busted hinges. It stuck as Reggie pushed it open, forcing him to squeeze through the narrow gap. It was cold in the house, and even with the door shut behind him, he could see his breath clouding in the gloomy dark. He let his eyes adjust to the dim; there was a light switch beside him, he didn’t reach for it. If the heat was gone, the lights were too.

“Reggie? That you?” a raspy voice asked from the dark as Reggie walked to the kitchen. A figure stirred there at the edge of the room, lifting itself up off the battered couch that comprised the only furniture in the room.

“Yeah, it’s me Ma.”

“Where you been, boy?” she asked angrily, sitting up on the couch. “I ain’t seen you in…in…”

“Two days, Ma.”

“Two drat days. Don’t you know your little brothers and sisters been hungry? You the biggest, you supposed to be the man of the house and you just off fuckin’ around, not caring about me or your family or nothing!” She grabbed something off the couch cushion and hurled it at him in a fit of impotent rage. The little glass vial bounced harmlessly off his chest to shatter on the slate floor. She fell back against the couch, tired by even that little exertion. “Where the hell you been, boy?”

Reggie bit back his anger. “I been at the hospital, Ma. With Jimmy.”

She clucked her tongue. “That fool boy, putting himself in the hospital like that. All five years since I brought him into this world I been slapping him around trying to get him to act right, but he just don’t learn. Told him to stay out of the kitchen when I was working, but Jimmy never had no sense. When he coming back? If I lose money off my check because he ain’t in my care I’ll put him right back in the hospital.”

Reggie felt himself shaking, but it was no longer from the freezing cold of the room. He didn’t respond to her, afraid of what he might say, what he might do. She looked at him blankly, only the faintest bits of comprehension in her tired eyes. Her dirty black hair was shot through with harsh streaks of greyish white, and her face was lined with the road map of a hard life full of city miles. She was only sixteen years older than him, barely forty, but she looked closer to sixty. He used to feel pity when he looked at her, but now there was only anger. To him, the healthy, caring woman of his early childhood was gone, slowly siphoned off into those little glass vials. The ragged scarecrow in front of him now was a stranger.

“Hey Reggie, you have anything for your poor momma?” she asked, forgetting about Jimmy. “This cold makes my bones hurt, it’d be real nice if I could have something to warm me up a bit.” Her eyes glistened wet and hopeful as she stared up at him.

Reggie fished in his coat pocket for the lone vial there, the one with the black plastic top that he’d made special himself. He tossed it into her lap and turned to walk to the kids’ room. Behind him, he could hear her scrabbling, popping the top off and flicking on her lighter.

The kids’ room had a window set in the wall, but the view was blocked two feet out by a brick wall. All the windows in the Neighborhood were like that, you could never see further than the walls of the next building. The kids were huddled together, four of them, on one lone mattress, packed together under a ratty blanket to keep warm. He stood there watching them for a moment, envious of their temporary serenity. The oldest, fourteen year old Kayla, stirred as he stood there, blinking rapidly as she swam back into consciousness. She smiled as she recognized him.

“Reggie!” she yelped excitedly. He shushed her, pointing to the sleeping ones beside her, and she lowered her voice. “We missed you, momma’s been all lovely since Jimmy’s accident. Just been getting high and talking about how she won’t let the state take us.” She shrugged. “Don’t know what she’s worried about, they ain’t sent no workers out to even check on us. Is Jimmy better? He coming home soon?”

He leaned down and ruffled her hair. “We gonna go see him now, how about that little lady?” He pulled the keys from his pocket, handing them to her. “You get the young’ns in my car out front. I’m just gonna grab some of Jimmy’s things.”

When they had gone and he was alone again in the room, he went over to the battered plastic bin of toys and fished out Jimmy’s old stuffed rabbit. It was torn in ten places, missing an ear and a leg. Reggie had always said that Jimmy loved things too hard, and the rabbit bore all the scars of that. His brain wasn’t right, hadn’t ever been right, probably from everything floating around in mom’s system when she’d been carrying him. He was slow in a lot of ways, one being that he couldn’t seem to comprehend that he could hurt things, could break things.

Then there’d been that day in the kitchen. His mother had been cooking up vials for the neighborhood dealers; they gave her the ingredients, she put in the work and got a taste off the top. Then one day she’d gotten high mid-cook and left the boiling mess on the burner with Jimmy playing in the corner with his rabbit, blissfully unaware. His mom had gotten out in time when Kayla came home and found her, Jimmy hadn’t been as lucky. The paramedics said the phosphorous gas had burned away most of his lungs, popped all the little balloons inside your lungs that let you breathe. He’d only lasted a couple of days even with a ventilator. He’d died hacking up blood on the clean white hospital sheets.

He left the empty room, the rabbit clutched in his left hand. He stepped over a pile of children’s clothes, hand-me-downs that Jimmy would never grow into now. His mother looked up at him as he walked by, needle still buried in her arm, empty black-top vial in her hand. Her nose was bleeding, and her face was marked with a dim look of realization of what was happening to her. She reached up, weakly grabbing his hand.

“I was a good momma to you, wasn’t I Reggie?” she asked, tears in her eyes. “You ‘member when I used to sing you to sleep? Before your daddy left, when we still had the house?”

“Yeah momma, yeah I do.” His voice caught in his throat.

She coughed, scarlet speckles spattering her chin. “Sing me to sleep boy, can you do that for your momma?”

Reggie sniffed, fighting back tears. Slowly, weakly he sang to her as she closed her eyes in the darkness, leaving him alone.

Black Griffon
Mar 12, 2005

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.


Gravity slaves - 845

By the time he'd reached the command post, the rest of his squad were dead. He sat down on a burned out tank, back leaned against the still warm plasma manifolds, swordtip resting on the ground. Any earther who weren't dead on the ground were long gone, he'd surely meet some resistance once he breached the command post, but he could handle it, and he could handle her.

Planetfall had made him painfully aware of how things had changed. Back before he left for the void, they'd talked about the beauty of space, the infinite. It didn't matter that the earth had restricted him so, that was nature back then. Gravity pained him now, he felt the weakness of his bones, the chains around his feet. Despite training for years in a grav-tumbler on his ship, he was unprepared.

She'd told him just before he'd left that no matter what happened, they'd meet again. She'd meet him in space, or he'd return to earth. They'd embrace, and one of them had to give up the dream. He would end his adventurous journey, or she'd depart from the safety of home. Best-laid schemes and all that.

He had just transferred orbit from Jupiter to Saturn when the call came in. She was on a transport heading interstellar, planned to hop off on a research station nestled in the rings. They'd met, embraced and realized that they'd been children for far too long, dreaming even past that age where idealists grow cynical. He was always meant for the void, she could never get used to it. It had taken them ten years to realize that. Lunch had been quiet, and he was uncomfortable in the artificial gravity. He'd suggested eating in the observatory, she told him she'd never keep the food down that way. Weightless was pointless.

For some reason, that was the sentence that had set him off.

Strength returned, he got to his feet, in the distance, artillery played a drumbeat, tearing unknown thousands apart. He placed breaching charges on the door, stepped away, and flipped the switch. Before the smoked had cleared he tumbled inside, weaving violence in arcs of red, painting the ground with each swing. One hit in the leg, didn't matter, one in the right arm, mattered more. He changed the grip on his sword went for the last two defenders.

"Enough."

She was older now. They'd been born two days apart, but she was even older now. Gravity's decay. She gave a signal, and the few remaining earthers left the bunker.

"Happy now?"

He didn't reply.

"You know," she continued, "We could have left it there, 'round Saturn. Reconciled our differences."

"Maybe you could, I couldn't."

She smiled, shook her head.

"I always admired your stubbornness," she said, "Maybe I didn't see it as that back then, but I see now that it's not bravery, it's not passion. You get an idea and you hold on to it."

"Because it's worth holding on to."

"For you."

"For everyone. I found freedom, and I pursued it. That's not stubbornness, that's enlightenment."

"You made a movement out of a pointless, fallacious ultimatum. Sit down."

He sat, rested his sword against the wall.

"I'm guiding us to freedom. You let your children grow up shackled to the mud, you hinder their imagination by keeping them here."

She shook her head, "For my sake, drop the melodramatic bullshit. It didn't work in your political campaigns, so now you're forcing it on us. Don't force it on me."

He couldn't look her in the eyes, couldn't if he tried.

"You're losing blood," she said.

They sat in silence for a while.

"I had a son," he said.

She seemed genuinely surprised, "When?"

"Eight years ago. His mother took and left for Mars."

Dots swam before his eyes, the room spun.

"I'd get messages from her now and then. Pictures, videos. I had to watch him grow up groundbound. I pleaded with her to come with me, travel on the weightless cities. I tried to tell her how beautiful it was.

"But she didn't listen?"

"She didn't want to."

"Mars was your first target," it was a statement, a cold one. Then, "What happened to them?"

"She drowned him when we started rounding up the children, then she killed herself."

He wasn't sure just how much time passed, but he realized he didn't have much time left.

"Why did you come here?" she said.

"I wanted you to understand, wanted you to see."

"Well, that's the thing. I understand why you're doing it, why you've started all this, but that doesn't make it any less insane."

"All I wanted was freedom, freedom for everyone."

They looked at each other, she tensed up, he lunged. She dodged him without effort and he careened across the command post, tripped on a cable and crashed into the wall. Fell to the ground, head bouncing on the concrete. Momentum and gravity, the best of both worlds.

"Should have read up on your Newton," she said, and stepped out the door.

Roguelike
Jul 29, 2006

THUNDERDOME LOSER
The Midnight Hour tolls, SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

Those of you who have failed to submit, look into your hearts and despair, knowing that your names shall forever be engraved on the Wall of Shame, beneath even the abonend bunkers and poo poo geysers.

JuniperCake
Jan 26, 2013
(Missed the deadline. Guess dems the breaks.)

Never Forget (Words - 1246)

Maggie first met Susie the Elephant at the hallmark store. The elephant stood on a display way in the back, a small ball of pink fluff with two large black glass eyes, and a shiny red bow on top. Wedged between boxes of forgotten valentine cards, Susie was the last of the store’s elephants. Maggie had to have her, and so she made her mother buy it.

It took two days before the elephant ended up under the bed with all her other junk.

Maggie didn’t really get along with others. Her parents were divorced and she was an only child. Parental guilt bought her everything she could ever want except for friends.

After school, Maggie, frustrated and sullen, would quietly go to her room, and fall face down on her bed. She didn’t want to not get along with the other kids but she couldn’t help it. They were always so stupid and boring and mean and she never fit in. They never did what she wanted to do and it just was never worth the effort.

“Don’t worry Maggie.” Came a voice from under the bed.

Out walked Susie, who stood triumphant with her red bow glistening bright from atop her head. “I’m all alone too. But it’s okay! We can be friends!”

“Really?”, Maggie asked.

The elephant smiled rainbows.

“Yes! Don’t you worry. We will be friends forever and ever and ever. An elephant never forgets their friends!”, Susie assured her

And Maggie got over those rotten kids at school. What did she need them for when she had an awesome elephant friend who was always there for her. The two were inseparable. They’d hop and skip along springs of grass in the woods that catapulted them high into the air and into the clouds. They’d have tea on those clouds then ride bikes down the cliffs and through the world and all the deep hidden kingdoms of the earth.

For Susie was a magic elephant and could do anything. And she liked nothing more than to make Maggie happy.

It was the little things that Maggie liked most. Susie ate the greens that Maggie pushed off her plate, and helped her with her homework, just as a best bud should. Susie especially loved to listen, and would stay still for hours as Maggie talked about her day, the jerks at school, her big thoughts and little dreams.

One day coming home from school. Maggie again was distraught. Nature, in some cruel joke, covered her face over with red splotches. It was a time of change, one that few escaped unscathed.

She was already unpopular, and this only made it worse.

“It’s okay I can fix it!” Susie said. “I always got your back girl.”

Susie worked her magic, and said that her face would not only clear up but that she will appear more and more beautiful as time goes on. So that others would be able to see her as Susie did and that the teasing would stop.

It worked too, just as Susie said. In a few months the teasing slowed to a trickle and then it stopped. She was pretty now and everything felt different. Thanks to Susie’s magic she felt for the first time that she could talk to the other kids. And they talked to her back. Even the popular kids even hanged out with her. She lost time in the depths of the mall chatting it up with her new friends about everything under the sun. It was very different than just having Susie around.

It was late afternoon when she came home.

“You okay? You took so long getting back I was starting to get worried.” Susie asked, appearing from beneath the bed.

Maggie talked to Susie for hours about the kids, all the games they played and how nice it was at school. Susie listened as she always did, nodding.

“I’m so glad you are happy”, Susie said.

Every day it was yet a new adventure. She went with the kids to the mall and the movies and the steak and shake.

Tonight, was homecoming and Maggie was going to go there with all her friends. It was going to be awesome.

An elephantine shadow snuck out from under the bed.
“Hey Maggie, wanna hang out?” Susie asked, wrinkling her large pink ears.

“Oh uh, it’s homecoming you know. Kinda busy, sorry.” Maggie said.

“Oh I didn’t know. You never told me.” Susie said, soft as a ghost

Maggie sagged, when was the last time she had talked to Susie? She couldn’t quite recall. “Oh Susie I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of busy but maybe we can hang this weekend”

“Oh yes! I’d like that”, Susie brightened.

But homecoming night ended, and then the weekend came and went. Maggie spent the weekend at her friend’s dad’s place. They had a giant pool and the largest plasma screen she had ever seen. They ordered a bunch of pizzas and lived like queens.

Again she apologized to Susie and again Susie, the perfect elephant friend, accepted her apology. “What are friends for?” She said, the elephant’s voice only slightly hollow.

As time went on, the apologies continued. Maggie was truly sorry but what was she to do, she had never had so many friends before and it was the most wonderful thing ever.

It took her time to notice as she went out with her friends that occasionally a shadow dogged at her heels. Now and then she would hear the clop of heavy feet amidst the crowd of the mall, or a tendril of fluffy pink reaching from behind a rack of clothing. More and more, she saw signs of Susie, everywhere.

Susie would never admit it, but Maggie knew. She started to avoid her room, going there only to sleep with the covers piled on high and thick. Susie was there under the bed waiting, always.

Yet even Maggie found it hard to ignore when she came home one day to a giant pink elephant standing on top of her bed.

“I was thinking you’d talk to me if I was a bit easier to see. It gets dark under the bed and I’m usually just a small little thing.” Susie was standing on top of the bed, towering up to the ceiling. “I’ve been missing you, you know.” The elephant’s voice was coated with lead.

Maggie swallowed a lump in her throat. “Uh. Hello Susie.”

Susie shut the door with her trunk. “How’s it going? Been having fun with your friends?”

“Yeah.” Maggie backed away. “Say uh, I was just going in for a little bit. Gonna go back out before dad comes home. Do you mind?”

“They aren’t really your friends.” Susie’s dull glass eyes focused onto Maggie. “Did you forget all the things they did to you?”

Maggie inched for the window, with every other avenue blocked. But Susie merely took one colossal step and cut her off “No, you listen to me” Susie said

“I deserve a better friend than a selfish punk like you. I’m leaving” Susie said, little plastic tears rolling from her glass eye. “Watch your back”

And then she was gone.

Yet despite the elephant’s words, she never truly left. Every now and then when Maggie is all alone, she can sometimes hear the stamping of little elephant feet, and the faintest whisper in the air
“No one will love you like I do.”

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






JuniperCake posted:

(Missed the deadline. Guess dems the breaks.)

A disqualification is better than a failure to submit in TD.

Also you can still lose for a DQ (but not win) so it's really putting your neck out there, which is admirable.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?
LOL I totes forgot I don't actually live in EST timezone anymore herp derp. Welp no time to edit dis bitch, good thing I'm a judge or whatever this week:

Usurper (Slightly less than 1250 words because I took some out while I was doing the spacing just now)

Lil was elated as she punched in the safe’s code, everything was going perfectly to plan. 1-5-1-1-2-3-6-8. Her birthday, Daddy’s birthday, and their anniversary. The code panel flashed red.Incorrect code entered. Please re-enter code.

“What the-“ Lil slapped the door of the safe, “That rear end in a top hat changed the code, and he didn’t tell me!

Ange frowned and touched the tip of her nose with her index finger as she thought, a stupid little affectation that Daddy, of course, found adorable.

“Hang on,” she said finally, “let me try something.”

Lil watched over Ange’s shoulder as she entered a different code: 7-4-1-1-2-3-1-5. The panel flashed green and the safe click-thunked open.

Ange laughed, “Alright!”

Behind her, Lil ground her teeth, fingernails digging into her palms inside her clenched fists. The new code was Ange’s birthday, Daddy’s birthday, and her birthday. And her birthday was last. “I can’t wait to get rid of your bitch rear end” thought Lil, staring holes into the back of Ange’s head.

“Okay,” Lil handed Ange the golf bags they’d brought along, “You empty it, I’ll go make sure no-one comes in.”

She opened the office door and slipped out, closing it softly behind her. Then she locked it, and pulled out her phone. Daddy was not going to be pleased with Ange.
---

Lil had decided that she and Ange were enemies at her birthday party. In truth, though he always maintained that she and Ange were equals, that he loved one just as much as the other, Lil had always known that she was Daddy’s favourite. She was Daddy’s first wife. Lil had been there for Daddy since New Orleans, when he was just another punk hustling tourists on Bourbon Street. Ange was just a jumped-up working girl who knew how to play her way up the ladder, from being Lil’s employee to her friend, to eventually helping her run the girls while Daddy took care of all the other business. But they were never equals. Daddy had even asked Lil for her for permission to make Ange his second wife, for Christ’s sake.

And yet here he was, fawning over Ange, feeding her apple slices from the chocolate fountain. Ignoring Lil at her own birthday party. She seethed as she watched Daddy caressing Ange, running his fingers down her neck, through her hair. Then, the tall double doors at the other end of the room thudded open and Lil caught Daddy’s eye for a second as everyone turned to look at the cake as it was wheeled in. He snatched his fingers away from Ange as if she’d burned him and started shouldering his way through the crowd towards Lil.
Lil’s girls descended on her, placing a diamond encrusted tiara on her head, thrusting a bottle of Cristal into her hand, sweeping her up to the platform where the cake was now on display. It was almost as tall as she was, festooned with royal icing flowers painted gold and silver. Daddy knew how to cater a party.

The girls led the crowd of party guests in a raucous chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ and Daddy climbed up to the platform to present Lil with her birthday gift. She gasped with delight when Daddy opened the box in his hands to reveal a necklace glittering with diamonds and huge rubies.

“It’s platinum,” said Daddy as he lifted it out of the box, draping the strands over his palms so that the light danced inside the gems, “twenty-one carats, because it’s your twenty-first birthday, right baby?” he grinned.

“Why don’t you stop talking and let me wear it, you big dope?”

The necklace was perfect; more beautiful than the one she had had in mind, had been dropping hints about for a month. It was absolute proof of how much Daddy loved her.

But as Daddy placed the necklace around her neck, his fingers brushing her skin, all Lil could see was the way he touched Ange’s hair as they whispered by the fountain. Her smile became a rictus as she watched Ange smiling and celebrating with the rest of the girls. As if she wasn’t a duplicitous snake trying to usurp Lil’s position.

Lil turned to Daddy, “It’s fabulous, Daddy, just what I wanted!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lil could see Ange watching them. She pulled Daddy close and kissed him passionately, her heart surging as he returned the kiss with equal vigour. She felt and hand on her shoulder and broke away to see Ange beside her, smiling and holding a large knife.

“You should cut the cake!” she chirped, all smiles.

“Oh! I guess I should,” said Lil, taking the knife from Ange and strutting over to the cake table.

“Speech!” slurred a voice from near the front of the crowd. “Speech, speech, speech.”

The rest of the party guests picked up the chant and Tamika, Lil’s favourite girl, thrust a microphone into her hand.

“I’ll hold the Cristal for you if you want, Mama,” she whispered.

Lil shook her head, “It’s alright, honey, I’ll hang on to it.”

She turned to face the ballroom full of guests, her shoulders thrown back and her chin raised, so that they couldn’t help but see the necklace. She wore it like armour. Proof of Daddy’s love, protecting her from being shoved aside by that blonde-haired little hussy.

“Thank you so much for coming out to celebrate my birthday,” Lil began, “I hope y’all are having as fine a time as I am.” There were cheers and whoops from the crowd, “I’d like to thank Adam, or as we know him here at the club, Daddy, for all of this beauty here tonight – you know none of us would be here without him.” Daddy’s chest puffed with pride.
“Finally, I want y’all to know that although our girls aren’t strictly here in a working capacity tonight, they may be willing to conduct business with you if you tip them generously enough,” the crowd cheered again. “Now, what do you say we get this party started?”

Shaking the Cristal bottle, Lil shoved the microphone back at Tamika, whirled back to face the girls, Ange, and Daddy, and popped the cork. She whooped and laughed as the spray of expensive champagne coated Ange’s hair, which Lil had spent hours helping her set into perfect waves.

“Ooops,” she giggled, “my bad!”

Bitch thinks she can put one over on me, she’s got another thing coming.
----

Daddy barged through the office door as Lil threw it open.

“What is this nonsense?” he thundered, taking in the scene with wide eyes. The safe hung open, and hundred dollar bills littered the floor and the desk, overflowing from Lil’s monogrammed golf bag. Ange stood behind the desk, admiring herself in the computer’s dark screen. She was wearing Lil’s birthday necklace. Lil shrieked.

“See?” She crowed, “She’s stealing from you, Daddy. From us.

Ange looked up as if she had only just noticed them. “Didn’t I tell you this would happen, Daddy? I told you I knew what she was up to.”

Daddy sighed, shaking his head.

“I know, Evangeline, I know. I didn’t want to believe it.”

Lil sputtered, “Wh-what?” She could hear the blood rushing in her ears as the colour drained from her face.

Daddy turned towards her, drawing his gun, “Lil. Baby. You know I didn’t want it to end like this.”

Behind him, all Lil could see was Ange’s smile.

ThirdEmperor
Aug 7, 2013

BEHOLD MY GLORY

AND THEN

BRAWL ME
Welp, missed the deadline. Sucks, but hey, here's the story anyway. I'd be deeply grateful if the judges saw fit to criticize the piece despite it's lateness.


In Remembrance -684 words

"Terry was the best sort of guy. He was quiet, unfailing. The sort of guy you know for years and years and one day you realize he's the best friend you ever had. The oldest too. I can't think of anyone I kept in contact with as long as Terry, we moved here together. It's my greatest regret that we fell out of touch... That I wasn't there for him. I can't imagine why he did it. He was the strongest person I knew, but I suppose--

The very real train screeching by down the tracks collided with John's train of thought, and reality won. The fumbling words of his speech were drowned under the clank of metal on metal and ponderously laboring machinery. With the jarring return to here and now came all the small irritations he was hoping to escape; The seams of his cheap suit chafing against skin, the air-freshener stink clinging to the car but not quite covering up the fecal smell below, the steady tick of his watch pronouncing him one second later time and time again. A quarter of a fifth in his cups already, and somehow that had only made him more acutely aware of everything wrong with the world today.

Any small thing would do. Any little grievance to distract him from the big one.

The train passed, the arm of the crossing sign lifted and John went on, trying to piece the words in his head back together.

"Terry really was an everyman. He knew what he wanted and he wanted a normal, happy life. I wanted to be a lawyer, he was a roofing houses before I graduated. He got married to his high school sweetheart while I was still trying to pick up chicks in bars. And he wasn't an average person, or a boring person. Terry was personable, funny, he just liked quiet. Wanted everything to be smooth sailing..."

There were people at the wake that John could barely remember, from as far back as their high school days. People he'd cut contact with years ago. Terry never did though, not even for the ones he didn't like. Typical. John schmoozed from table to table, muttering apologies for never getting back to them and promising that this time he would. He shared drinks with old friends and then moved on, before any one of them could notice just how much liquor he'd slurped down.

And there she was, doing the same. Elise and him moved on opposite orbits, always managing to be on the other side of the room without ever once meeting eyes, as if magnetically repelled. She wasn't a forgotten acquaintance, although he wished he could forget.

"Terry was my best friend, and I never wanted anything bad to happen to him. He was such a sensitive person. You'd never notice it, he'd never say it, but things just weighed on him. I think I was one of the few people who saw that in him. Terry.. Terry was such a trooper you'd never know it, but he carried everything with him. I wish he'd learned to let live, because then, maybe..."

The words weren't coming. They sloshed about in the sea of whiskey and beer, colliding in the worst ways. Just as well. Nobody else had much to say. They shuffled up to the podium and muttered some trite eulogy, said Terry was too young, too good to go. Said they would never have imagined this, not in a million years... And none of them knew jack poo poo about who he really was. Bile crept up from beneath the liquor.

All of them conveniently forgot about Terry's flaws, about this and that. Even drunk John could remember. Terry wasn't the saint they were trying to paint him as. And Elise, surrounded by well-wishes and condolences, she was glad to forget as well. She would gladly forget all about the real Terry, and about them...

Then came John's turn at the podium. Now Elise met his gaze, and he started to talk, loud and slurring and angry. The words spilled out easy now.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
:cedric: oi! i fancy a butcher's at the judging card. takin ages, innit?

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

Martello posted:

:cedric: oi! i fancy a butcher's at the judging card. takin ages, innit?

Yeah, it's my fault, as always. You all wrote a lot of words okay.

Meinberg
Oct 9, 2011

inspired by but legally distinct from CATS (2019)

Fanky Malloons posted:

Yeah, it's my fault, as always. You all wrote a lot of words okay.

There's not that many words. Just the seventh most amount of words ever in the history of the Dome. GET ON IT!

Roguelike
Jul 29, 2006

THUNDERDOME LOSER
:siren:Thunderdome 74 Judgement:siren:

I asked for the best of friends. You gave me stories with mild acquaintances, family members who never liked each other, boys who sole measure of friendship was that they were willing to give each other the time of day, and fish.
I asked for the worst of enemies, those of you who remembered to include this part gave me madmen, drug addicts, killers, and disgruntled senators.
The degrees of failure were more impressive than I could have imagined. Some of you missed half the prompt, some of you missed all the prompt, some of you didn’t even tell a story. But from the filth, there were a few who managed to find unfilth.

This weeks winner, with a raw, rough story of drugs and murder that tugged at the judges’ heartstrings is sentientcarbon.

Honorable mentions go to Quidnose for telling a tale about horrible little monsters, Martello for vikings throwing each other off balconies, crabrock for a compelling yarn about the inseperable love between a man and his gun, and JuniperCake for a creepy elephant story that just wasn’t quite finished in time.

The worst of the worst out of a staggering 29 entries, give it up for the loser Feste who managed to be both the most difficult to read and have the least payoff with an eye scorchingly bad discussion on the merits of architecture that had absolutely no payoff whatsoever.

Dishonorable Mentions go to Mercedes for trying to pander to the judges with dumb in jokes, and Mr_Wolf for a tense destroying tale of child prostitution that made every rookie writer mistake and then some.

sentientcarbon, I pass the cursed sceptre of Thunderdome to you, please post the next prompt.

Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




Roguelike posted:


Dishonorable Mentions go to Mercedes for trying to pander to the judges with dumb in jokes,

Boo! Recount! Judges are crooked! Free Mercedes!

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe

Chairchucker posted:

Boo! Recount! Judges are crooked! Free Mercedes!

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






Feste, when you first posted your story I figured it probably wouldn't go well.

You've only failed if you give up now. Stay in the 'dome and fix your mistakes. That's what you're here for, right?

I've gone through your story and made several suggestions, asked questions you should answer (through storytelling), and noted place you could improve on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CsMJtySTDGfij0O8onstd9oAVBmD7SJ1W42xE7C946w/edit?usp=sharing

This took a lot of time, and I'm doing it to help you.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









crabrock posted:

Feste, when you first posted your story I figured it probably wouldn't go well.

You've only failed if you give up now. Stay in the 'dome and fix your mistakes. That's what you're here for, right?

I've gone through your story and made several suggestions, asked questions you should answer (through storytelling), and noted place you could improve on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CsMJtySTDGfij0O8onstd9oAVBmD7SJ1W42xE7C946w/edit?usp=sharing

This took a lot of time, and I'm doing it to help you.

And this from a man who can punch through Chobham armour plate with his dick.

He does not help by halves.

Edit: use names for people goddammit

Roguelike
Jul 29, 2006

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Critiques for Week 74

Sorry my crits suck. Much like your stories. Boom!
No really, I have to go somewhere far, far away from Thunderdome and do something that doesn't involve writing for a very long time so this is all you're going to get. I know you guys worked hard and I know it sucks to only get a few sentences about how bad your story is, but there are literally no more words left in me to give. You can console yourselves with the knowledge that that I didn't get your stories because I'm a big dummy.

Mr_Wolf Block 89

Even if this grimdark story about the totally not Judge Dredd future wasn’t steeped in amateur mistakes, it would boring and somehow both too British and not British enough. But it was, so it’s worse.
Stop writing the present in the past. You know how you start the story with a direct statement, do that for everything. Go through and just eliminate as many words as possible, replacing sentences like "I wanted to keep my mouth shut..." with "I kept my mouth shut..." See how much easier that was to write and read? Now go delete that whole sentence because it sucks. You need to be a McCarthy of words, interrogating each one and forcing it to provide a list of its friends before you throw them in the word gulag, never to see the light of day.
Make your sentences and paragraphs flow together. Not just better comma use, but grouping ideas together and transitioning nicely. Read your story aloud if you need to. Eliminate or rewrite anything that doesn't belong.
Follow the goddamn prompt. Does "He can hold his drink and a conversation so I didn't argue with the pairing" sound like they were the best of loving friends to you? The only positive here is that the error is a matter of degree. If you dialed this story up to 11, it might have hit the prompt.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Jubilee. An active liability that could get her entire team killed at any moment.

******************

uranus Duat

I did not enjoy your Sliders fanfiction.
The pieces of your story don’t tie into one another at all. The rivalry with his coworker, the dumb pottery macguffin, the lab that doesn’t work like any lab ever, the random Christmas party, the doppelganger, there’s nothing bringing them together to make a cohesive whole. Your protagonist isn’t interesting, his coworker isn’t even a character beyond spouting expository dialogue, and the ending is crushingly weak.
Oh and you didn’t follow the loving prompt. I guess you set up Simon to be the rival and then in a stunning twist it was actually doppelganger Carl, but it doesn’t work. The betrayal is meaningless because Carl is obviously a dick, why wouldn’t he be a dick to his alternate universe self. They were never friends and even now they aren’t exactly rivals, it’s unclear if they’re ever going to see each other again.
But even at being an rear end in a top hat, Carl wasn’t very good. Even the pettiest, most selfish assholes have to be able to think bigger than stealing the credit and writing a paper for an invention that would pretty much change everything forever.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Angel. A tepid, boring shell of a man whose power is a bad version of what everyone else gets for free.

******************

Feste Faded, Jaded Dweller

Is this architect erotica, what the gently caress is this.
Your story hates it’s reader. Reading this is like the written equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard. It’s pretentious, it’s boring, it’s not a loving story, and it’s not on prompt.
Arguably worse, despite over a thousand loving words devoted to the subject, each one like a nail to my brain, you’ve completely failed to convey that the protagonist has any passion for architecture.
To put this in perspective, last year someone wrote a story about a poo poo geyser. That story, whatever its downfalls, was a thousand times easier to read and, y'know, actually told a loving story.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Omega Red. A mutant so evil even the Soviets didn’t want him and whose ability brings slow, toxic death to everyone around him.

******************

Meinberg The Last Child

Okay, so this story is clumsy and awkward with a lot of words that say very little and a desperate need for names and pronouns, but I can’t hate it because it has screaming blood rain, it feels epic, and there’s a solid moment of betrayal.
There’s the beginnings of a good yarn here. Give this an ending that actually makes them the worst of enemies instead of waltzing in the rain, and you’ve got a foundation for something that could be quite good.
That said, your dialogue reads like it was written by Prequel Trilogy George Lucas, most of your descriptions feel stale (“blazed”, “thunder”) or clumsy (“voice roared with rebuke”), and I have no idea what’s going on.
I think the dialogue at the end of the sentence contributed to the distant, overwrought feeling of the story, but the one sentence where you didn’t do it made me very afraid this wasn’t a conscious choice. If it wasn’t, you should know that most of the time it’s weird to do that. And if it was, what was up with that one sentence.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Mystique. A bad cliche with a mysterious, unexplainable past that despite all odds occasionally manages to be interesting.

******************

SurreptitiousMuffin The harrow and the plow

Well it told a story and hit the prompt and didn’t waste my time so I guess it’s okay. I mean okay as far as dumb thunderdome in jokes can be okay. Which isn’t very.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Squirrel Girl.

******************

Play Where It Went Wrong

This is okay, I don’t hate this, there are some good feels here. The story could benefit with a little less interference from its all knowing narrator and a visit from the word reaper. You almost miss the ‘worst of enemies’ aspect of the prompt but I think the third to last paragraph manages sell it convincingly.
You also did a whole lot of telling, which worked better than it usually does, but with another 450 words to spare, I think you could have developed the characters of both the boy and the girl by expanding on some of the pivotal scenes. Show me a knife-fight argument. Let me see her finding the boy and the friend together.
This is the one story this week where not naming the characters wasn’t really a problem. I guess since their names were basically ‘girl’ and ‘boy’.
“many shuddering orgasms later” may be the best sentence fragment of the year so far.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Leech. Kind hearted with adorable eyes and heart three times too big. But still kinda ugly.

******************

crabrock Last Words

I wanted this to work. I liked the subplot of the sword and the bandit lord from The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. I liked the Bagpipe Who Didn’t Say No. But I’m afraid, like the eponymous Casey, you struck out.
I’m fairly sure you’re a good enough writer to know that “His chests oozes black roots that wrap around the gold star pinned on his chest” is a bad sentence for more than one reason, so let’s skip right past the numerous small mistakes right to the point of failure.
We don’t ever get to see them being friends. Where are the good times? Oh sure, we’re told they’re friends, but the flashback that shows them working together needs to be good. It needs to make me want to keep reading about the protagonist and his quirky relationship. There needs to be a dynamic that’s likable or fun to hate or interesting. Instead we just get a mildly psychotic protagonist, who is not sane enough to be sympathetic but not delightfully crazy enough to be entertaining.
Once you’ve established the foundation, your story could go on to play off that and be funny or tragic or whatever instead of turning into the bit of a mess it becomes.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
X-23. A clone of a beloved character that fails to capture any of the magic of the original.

******************

Schneider Heim In Exile

Okay, so sure you don’t know whether it’s Rudolph or Rudolf, and you completely forgot half of the prompt existed instead telling a completely straight coming of age story, but I’m willing to forgive a lot for your attempt at a boar hunting scene.
I guess I should point out that your dialogue is wooden, your characters are far too self-aware (what twelve year old kid has ever not wanted to go help his friend topple a kingdom), and having a father punch his kid makes us not like the father.
But enough of that, let’s talk about boar hunting. The good news is that your spears had crossguards, that’s good. You need that crossguard because otherwise the boar’s momentum won’t stop and he’ll loving run up your spear and kill you.
But it went downhill from there. Boars shouldn’t be pawing or pinning anyone, they should be goring with tusks backed by hundreds of pounds of hatred and rage. Your action scene was weak and confused, lacking any sense that this boar was a deadly and terrifying creature bent on the eradication of these two foolhardy youths.
But the real problem with this scene as the climax is that it doesn’t further the story. I guess we’re supposed to realize that Rudolf/ph is Cairn’s friend, but we knew that already. Maybe the point is Rudolph/f’s becoming a man, but we care nothing about his faraway kingdom or his quest to reclaim his throne. Even Rudolph/f only seems to be going through the motions.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Gambit. A forgetful thief who can’t remember to keep his Cajun accent up half the time and has one gimmick that isn’t very good.

******************

petrol blue We Don’t Fight Anymore

I don’t know, maybe if I was smarter, this story about a couple waiting for someone to die would be a brilliant commentary on the state of postmodern narratives. But I’m dumb, so I’m not even sure it counts as a story. For one, stories traditionally have a beginning, middle, and end. In between, something generally happens. You have two sections about two awful, unlikable people where nothing of any interest happens and your third section, in a dramatic change of place, is a flashback to… nothing happening?
It’s possible to write well about the desperation of everyday life, but the Glass Menagerie this is not. It lacks any of the small details or false hope that could make this situation feel so dreadfully real and depressing, instead it just feeling like ruined relationship tourism.
While you were at it, you also missed the prompt by writing about like, an average married couple. I have neighbors who hate each other more than your characters. I asked for timeless enemies and you gave me a petty husband and wife who inconvenience each other by putzing around.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Winnie the Pooh.

******************

Nikaer Drekin Dissolution

Timeless premise. You did a great job making the reader like Bruhl and hate Kennington. Bruhl’s dialogue was easily the best part of the story, much better than your poor use of words like youngish, slunk, and morosely.
Which, uh, which might have been where you erred.
Because I’m not rooting for Kennington. When he comes back from the dead after a bunch of now pointless action, I’m not thinking “thank god he survived” I’m thinking “man, Kennington is a dick for making his wife kill that guy, I hope Bruhl whacks that fool”.
Kennington wearing a vest really undercuts his best line in the story too. “You don’t have murder in you.” That line was good and it showed that he still believed in his friend, which was touching. But it turns out Kennington is just a lying fucker and he never believed in his friend at all.
As far as the rest of the story, all the action stuff reads like you’re describing scenes from a bad movie, Kennington is duller than watching paint dry, and Sara existing only to be manipulated is kinda insulting.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Sabertooth. Prone to pointless outbreaks of bloody action but never actually able to kill any of the good guys that we’re rooting for him to slaughter.

******************

Martello As Brothers, Once

You loving nailed the prompt. Some people might say it’s cliche, but gently caress those people. Cliches done well are a thing of beauty. You had an interesting setting and awesome use of a lot of strange countries and names to inform rather than confuse the reader. There’s a strong voice, characters that were fun to read, and a rocking mad king with an adorable dog.
Nitpicks. For a story that feels very grounded, the ending seems far too neat and tidy. Instead of a sense of unease for the future of this kingdom, I’m left with a feeling that everything’s basically all wrapped up.
Good stuff, but the Thunderdome Gods decreed that there must be three judges, not one, and so your choice of genre has doomed you, noble barbarian.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Selene. A 17,000 year old vampire that tears poo poo up but sets a poor example for the children by not wearing any clothes and posting white noise in the thread.

******************

Tyrannosaurus The Incident on the Chunky River

Is this supposed to be funny. I don’t know, judging Thunderdome has rendered me incapable of any feeling but rage. If it’s supposed to be funny, I guess the idiot plot that only works because Stump doesn’t tell Gulper about the hook is okay.
But I didn’t laugh, so I don’t think it’s meant to be funny. Or at least, not haha funny. And if it’s only light-hearted and not funny then why is Stump so dumb. I know, I know, he’s a catfish, but like why’d he invite Gulper over in the first place.
gently caress, I think Thunderdome has broken me.
Anyway, they didn’t really turn into the worst of enemies, they just had a spat and Gulper went off and got himself killed.
The fish falling in and out of accent was confusing too. Maybe that was also supposed to be funny. And then the narrator suddenly develops an accent. In fact, word usage is all over the place with fish smiling, talking about hell, and knowing what liver is. Are there fish apologists, now that would be funny.
If you think about it, they weren’t really the best of friends either. I mean the narrator tells us they are, but I’m not sure if I can trust that guy.
At the end of the day though, I can’t hate this for not making me laugh and not nailing the prompt. It was readable, you told a story, and you appear to have spent some time editing it. Good job, you’re in the top 50% of the class.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Iceman. Utterly average competence. Can be relied upon to not gently caress things up, usually. Constantly laughing at the back of the class.

******************

Nubile Hillock Dust to Dust

“I stared, awestruck, out through the dome. We were going to die.” is the hook of this story, everything that comes before is complete chaff. Throw it all away. Especially since after the first half of your story, your narrator’s voice completely changes and everything we learned, we get to learn again in a better, more active voice in the second half.
‘Better’ in only the most relative use of the term. It still feels clumsy to have this second hand narration of past events. The entire interesting part of the story is in that flashback, the crew of the arcology slowly becoming mad and turning on each other until only Cassy and the protagonist are left.
The part we see is like turning on the last five minutes Event Horizon. The protagonist seems like less a character and more an excuse to narrate events. I guess you missed the prompt too, while you were wasting all those words on setting, you also forgot to even allude to any friendship with Cassy.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
The Blob.

******************

Jagermonster Figmo

I like politics. I know politics. Reading this, I don’t get the feeling that you do.
By not using parties or ideas you were probably trying to portray a mainstream ‘both parties are corrupt and equally bad’ view of the U.S. Congress, but gently caress that poo poo. Welcome to 2014 where everything is filibustered, you don’t need to talk to filibuster anymore, and acrimony is so high that the Democrats are on the verge of killing the filibuster. There’s no banking initiatives, this Congress can’t even keep the loving government open.
Without knowing the issues or the stakes, I can’t find myself getting involved in the story and it devolves into two scumbags screwing each other over. Obviously the point of view scumbag thinks he’s in the right, but so does literally everyone in Congress.
As for the rest, we don’t get any glimpses of their partnership, certainly nothing to make us think they were the best of friends. The purple heart stuff was heavy handed and the plot itself was completely straightforward without a cloud of tension or twist in sight.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Sebastian Shaw. Destined to lose his position as soon as anyone with an ounce of political know-how shows up.

******************

Mercedes Black and Tan

Oh it’s an extended thunderdome in joke that includes the phrase “goatse’d the air”. Well, at least you told a story and maybe hit the prompt. Go join SurreptitiousMuffin in the not losers corner.

You know what, no, at least Muffin didn’t waste my time. This wasn’t nearly as bad some of the poo poo submitted this week, but those guys put their hearts into their stories instead of playing Thunderdome bingo and hoping the judges would catch all their sweet references.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Storm. Always giving an overwrought speech before using any of her powers.

******************

Seldom Posts Two Heroines

There’s some good language here and the distant, poetic narrator kind of works, but this piece is hamstrung by going up against much longer stories that tell more complete tales. You made a good choice not writing 1200 words of this though, because that would be terrible.
As an experiment in writing to see if you can slip fanfiction through, this is pretty solid. As a story it’s lacking some key elements. Still, it was fun to read and didn’t make me angry. “Joy poured out of her like a garden hose,” is the second best sentence fragment of the week.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Cerebro.

******************

Kaishai Mirror Truth

I really, really liked the start of your story. It was fun, it was quirky, it had a likable protagonist.
Then you decided to break my heart by telling a completely by the numbers anorexia tale.
As anorexia stories go, I guess it’s fine--pretty good even--but stories that are about(™) sensitive issues are always going to be a horrible quagmire of dead puppies.
The ending also confused me as to whether she’s cured or bulimic or going to go back to being anorexic tomorrow. And it made me sad. Because these are just not the kind of questions I want to be asking myself after I finish reading a story.
Good job hitting the prompt though in a fun way. Or y’know, what would have been fun if it hadn’t been about anorexia.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Rogue. Whenever she touches people, horrible things happen.

******************

Erogenous Beef Redox

This chemistry talk is way better than architecture talk. I don’t know if it’s all bullshit or what, but it’s fun to read.
Which is good, because take away the chemistry and this story doesn’t really have a lot going for it. It’s lacking desperately in tension and plot, the only stakes are some ill defined chemical cold war, and I’m not entirely convinced it follows the prompt. I think we’re supposed to care about the niece, but after setting her up with the photograph, that thread just completely disappears.
The ending also seems to be building toward something, but I just don’t understand the story ends where it does. The Americans sent her here to give a talk and she refused to give it, which seems bad, but I have no idea how that ties in with everything else. I can sorta speculate that maybe she’s going to defect or help Hermann defect or blow up this council of nitrogen scientists. This feels more like a middle then an end, there’s no resolution or natural stopping point I can see here.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Dark Beast.

******************

Walamor The Promise

This scene was okay in It’s A Wonderful Life because everyone hates George Bailey and wants to see him rot in that awful town forever.
Here though, in ‘two guys discuss their life over coffee’ creative writing purgatory, it sucks. For more than a thousand words, two assholes talk back and forth in a conversation that goes nowhere and then they leave.
There’s no action, no story, nothing but two guys and a joyless diner laying out some expository dialogue that everyone could see coming from a thousand miles away. Just give these guys something to do or make one of them funny or… something. Anything.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
George Bailey.

******************

Fumblemouse Dragon vs Taniwha

Feels like this story is all razzle with no meat. Lots of great language, cool imagery, and fun dialogue, but at the end of the day I’m left with no idea what the betrayal is or why they’re rivals now or even what the nature of their feud is. It’s not like defense lawyers and drug dealers are natural enemies or anything.
I have the uneasy feeling that I’ve entirely missed the point of this story. I could either blame myself for that or you. Hmmm, tough choice.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Mastermind.

******************

sebmojo Besties

Okay, the good news is that you clearly hit the prompt. The bad news is that you did so with a story that limped slowly along going from happy to depressing before delivering with the weakest of endings. The first two parts feel like they exist solely to set up the third part, which could be okay, but hardly anything besides character names carries over. So little happens in the second part that you could almost cut it out completely.
The payoff for all of this is Sharon learning that Tracey is sleeping with her husband and then getting to tell her friend to gently caress off. Maybe if I liked Sharon or had seen Tracey being consistently awful to her it would have been more of ‘hell yeah’ victory moment, but I didn’t and it wasn’t. Instead it just seemed like the plodding, inevitable end to the depressing as gently caress third act which lacks any of the joy of the first two acts.
The real failure of the story is that after spending all this time with Sharon, I still don’t have any sense of who she is or what she wants out of life or why I should root for her. I would rather see the point of view of Tracey, who may or may not be lying to sleep with James, and is a much more interesting character who appears to have actual ambitions.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Emma Frost.

******************

Quidnose Old Boys Club

There’s so many children. I hate all these children. gently caress children.
The dialogue is fine although some of this seems a little Steven Spielberg remembering being a kid and less actually being a kid. You managed to more or less untangle all the children’s names.
But gently caress these kids, I hate them all and if that was what you were going for, good job. Arnold is a bully, Stuart and Reggie are pathetic, Daniel is a coward, the rest are evil. Yes, children are awful. Maybe as a part of a larger story this could work better, but as a standalone it just feels so ugly to read.
As far as I can tell, no one in this story has a single redeeming feature. It’s all darkness and gloom without any joy or fun or happiness at all.
I’m going to go drink.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Vertigo.

******************

No Longer Flaky The Sea’s A Harsh Mistress

This story wasn’t that bad. Then the dialogue started. And it was, it was that bad.
I don’t even where to start. Let’s begin with the structure and then we’ll move on the content. You need to be writing dialogue that interacts with the story. Rather than just posting a script, you need to be weaving the words in with things that are happening so that everything flows together. This makes your story more interesting to read and helps keep it from becoming stale.
Now for the content. Words are precious. Each one is like a bullet. If you waste them, if you use them inappropriately, then you won’t have any left for when the Nazis come storming over that hill with murder in their eyes. So when you write ““No more than I am a tool of yours. You use me for your own benefit, [blah] [blah] [blah]”, you aren’t just wasting words, you are killing your story. But more than that, dialogue needs to feel like it belongs. And the wooden, cursy, mess that both the boat and the sea talk in doesn’t feel like it belongs.
Look, what I’m trying to say is, write better loving dialogue.
Now, I don’t mean to give you pass on everything else that sucks in your story, but don’t worry about it too much. You remembered to tell a story, you hit the prompt, the boat even had, like, motivation and poo poo.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Black Bolt.

******************

Kleptobot The Martyr

Two guys talk. One of them kills the other.
It wasn’t the worst of the week. I get the feeling that you didn’t care about any of these fools. I certainly didn’t. Not David, or Gregor, or their stupid revolution. So when Gregor gets shanked and tossed into the sea, it’s just kinda ‘welp’. And then it’s over.
You get points for them actually having a disagreement that didn’t make one of them obviously wrong and maybe in a longer piece you could have talked enough ideology to make this interesting, but right now it just doesn’t feel complete.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Marrow.

******************

sentientcarbon Brother’s Keeper

Awww, this is a good sad story about a boy murdering his mother because it had to be done. It hits just the right notes of Reggie finally coming to terms with what he has to do and how Ma used to be a much better person before her life disintegrated.
That said, drugs seem like a little bit of a copout for an actual disagreement. I wish you’d been able show Ma as a villain that Reggie felt he had to get rid of without resorting to that cliche.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Magneto.

******************

Black Griffon Gravity slaves

Two old lovers meet on a battlefield. There’s some potential here, but it’s squandered in clunky exposition and plodding dialogue.
There’s no momentum to this story, you just lay out the setting then lay down the dialogue then have a perfunctory fight. You need to mix all these elements together instead of keeping them separate. The fight needs to be going on with the dialogue. Get rid of all those blocks of text at the beginning of the story and if you really feel the need to keep any of that information, tell it to us as he remembers it during the conversation.
The way it is now, you’ve got a big flashing sign saying ‘Here’s what I’m going to do’ and then you do it, which isn’t a terribly interesting way to tell a story.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Cyclops. A guy who telegraphs that he’s going to shoot you by pointing his eyeglasses at you and then lifting up his hand.

******************

JuniperCake Never Forget

There’s a good voice here that’s fun to read while also managing to be be increasingly creepy. It’s too bad that it came in over the time limit with a rushed ending and some editing issues. With a little more time I think you could have really hit the ‘worst of enemies’ part of the prompt, but as is, you kinda flubbed that too.
Would’ve loved to have read the finished version of this.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Bone Wolverine.

******************

Fanky Malloons Usurper

Even though it was double DQ’d for being both late and from a judge, I would totally crit this if Thunderdome hadn’t broken my will to live.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Invisible Woman.

******************

ThirdEmperor In Remembrance

A guy goes to a wake and gets plastered. I can’t even see the prompt from wherever this story landed. I mean yeah, it’s expected that when someone loving dies, you say nice things about them and don’t bring up all the times they were an rear end in a top hat.
I guess, technically, this manages to tell a story, there are actions that take place. But it just feels like wankery.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Harry Leland.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









sentientcarbon, where's our fuckin prompt

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




Roguelike posted:

Critiques for Week 74

...but those guys put their hearts into their stories

You can rightly go gently caress yourself and whatever horse you rode in on.



I will brawl you at any goddamn given time and crush your heart under my heel.

curlingiron
Dec 15, 2006

b l o o p

Man, I just found this thread tonight, and am bummed, because I had a fun (for me) idea for the last prompt. I actually ended up writing it (it's VERY short), but now I'm even more sad because I really like it, and I have nothing to do with it. :smith:

Definitely going to try my hand at the next one, though!

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
EDIT VVVV Do what he said, I forgot about that thread

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Jan 7, 2014

Meinberg
Oct 9, 2011

inspired by but legally distinct from CATS (2019)

curlingiron posted:

Man, I just found this thread tonight, and am bummed, because I had a fun (for me) idea for the last prompt. I actually ended up writing it (it's VERY short), but now I'm even more sad because I really like it, and I have nothing to do with it. :smith:

Definitely going to try my hand at the next one, though!

Put it up on the fiction farm for critique, and if it is capable of being good, send it out somewhere for publication. There's plenty of places that into publishing quality flash fiction. C'mon, don't be a coward!

curlingiron
Dec 15, 2006

b l o o p

Welp. I'll put it here, and maybe in the other thread, too, if that's okay.


The Good Boy - 437 words


Brutus climbed the steps to the room, the familiar creak of the old slats in eerie contrast to the chaos and howls from outside. He did not want to reach the top, but had to keep moving. He felt the others’ eyes upon him, judging.

He had waited as long as he could, but even he could see that the writing was on the wall. The good times were over, and he knew that if he wanted to live, he would have to find a place in this new world on his own.

He hesitated. He knew that he shouldn’t, but he turned his head, looking down at the audience there. The short one – the leader, not because of a natural gift but due to a relentless, deep-seated fury that kept him fighting until long after the big men would run crying – met his eyes, a challenge.

“Well? You’ve got this far, don’t tell us you’ve changed your mind!” The short one smiled nastily, baring his teeth.

Brutus returned to the stairs, and finally reached the top. The room was there.

The first two had been easy. The Man, Brutus had learned long ago, took joy in tormenting those weaker than him, and though he claimed to love Brutus, what he really loved was showing Brutus his place. No gift went without some cruel joke, no tenderness except that in mocking apology for the pain that preceded it.

The Woman was not quite so unkind, but with bottle in hand had seen Brutus alone, neglected, unfed and, unable to care for himself, punished when he finally succumbed to nature’s necessities and soiled himself, humiliated.

But here was the Boy, and the Boy had been kind.

“Puppy?” came the voice, small, from beneath the bed, and the Boy’s golden head emerged slowly from beneath a comforter, faded but beloved, by both Brutus and his Boy.

He felt his resolve melt. He sighed, felt the gentle touch of the Boy’s hand upon his head, and knew he could not do it.

“Traitor!” shrieked the short one, bolting up the stairs. Brutus turned, but before he could even raise a hackle, the boy struck.

The short one recoiled, stunned, as the missile – a baseball, long familiar to Brutus – rebounded, and the Boy bent to pick it up, ready to strike again.

Brutus heard a familiar laugh. No, she was dead; the Woman was gone, but here…

He turned, and yes, there was the Boy, laughing the Woman’s careless laugh, the Man’s look of contempt on his face.

“Stupid dog!”

Brutus made it quick, because he had been a Good Boy.

sentientcarbon
Aug 21, 2008

OFFLINE GAMES ARE THE FUTURE OF ONLINE GAMING

The numbers don't lie. 99.99% of every Diablo 3 player wants the game to be offline. This is a FACT.

OH SHIT IS THAT A WEBCAM? HOLY CRAP GET THAT AWAY FROM ME! (I am terrified of being spied on, because I am a very interesting person)
Thunderdome LXXV: He's Not Quite Dead

As human beings, there are things that tie us all together. Universal experiences that tap into what it truly means to be human. The comfort we feel in the embrace of a loved one. The exhilaration we feel when newly in love. The respect we feel for Kanye West as a musician, and the disdain we feel for him as a person.

But nothing is quite as universal as death. The fact that we die affects nearly every aspect of our lives, cultures, and shared history. Empires have been carved out of flailing attempts at immortality. Religions have been birthed from the ephemeral promises of eternal life. Throughout most of human history, power has been derived solely from one's ability to cause the deaths of others.

Your story is going to be about a world without death. The mechanics of this aren't important, but if you think including them in your story makes it better then go nuts. I want you to give me a glimpse into a world where no one ever need fear death, and how this would redefine what it means to be human. You can focus on society at large or one schmuck going about his day or anything in between. Just so long as you present a compelling view of what it would mean if none could ever die. Otherwise, go nuts, be creative.

:siren:The Saddest Rhino's flashy new rule:siren:

The Saddest Rhino posted:

Do not give me worldbuilding poo poo as the entirety of your story; I'll make you want to live in a world without death.

Judges:
Me
SurreptitiousMuffin (because his avatar reminds me of Chumlee from Pawn Stars)
The Saddest Rhino (because I find the idea of a sad rhino funny)

Sign-up Deadline: 11:59 pm, Friday the 10th, EST.
Submission Deadline: 11:59 pm, Sunday the 12th, EST.


Word Count: 1250 immortal words or less

Lazarus wannabes:
The Leper Colon V
Peel
Black Griffon
Erogenous Beef (Self Flash-Rule - Story must be centered on the colonial tea trade.)
JamieTheD
No Longer Flaky
Nubile Hillock ReptileChillock
petrol blue
Chairchucker
Play
Mr_Wolf
Captain Trips
Docbeard
Martello
Schneider Heim
ThirdEmperor
God Over Djinn
magnificent7
Meinberg
Uranus
Quidnose
Djeser
Sitting Here
Zack_Gochuck
Bigup DJ
Ihmemies
Rainbow Unicorn
Chair Bird
Entenzahn
Barracuda Bang!
Emy
Tyrannosaurus
QuoProQuid
Baudolino
Mercedes
Nikaer Drekin
V for Vegas
Crabrock
Seldom Posts
Feste
Amused Frog
Guiness13
Agnostic Jihad
WeLandedOnTheMoon!
ThePopeOfFun
El Diabolico
DreadNite
Kaishai


sentientcarbon fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Jan 11, 2014

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
Did someone really red-text you for saying you wanted offline play in Diablo 3?

Regardless, I actually have an idea for this one, and I produced nothing last time. So, in.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.



I understand I have been made judge and THEREFORE:

:siren: FLASH RULE APPLICABLE TO ALL :siren:

Do not give me worldbuilding poo poo as the entirety of your story; I'll make you want to live in a world without death.

THANKS GUYS :)

Peel
Dec 3, 2007

Deathless world, deathless prose, cinch. In.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Roguelike posted:

Martello As Brothers, Once

You loving nailed the prompt. Some people might say it’s cliche, but gently caress those people. Cliches done well are a thing of beauty. You had an interesting setting and awesome use of a lot of strange countries and names to inform rather than confuse the reader. There’s a strong voice, characters that were fun to read, and a rocking mad king with an adorable dog.
Nitpicks. For a story that feels very grounded, the ending seems far too neat and tidy. Instead of a sense of unease for the future of this kingdom, I’m left with a feeling that everything’s basically all wrapped up.
Good stuff, but the Thunderdome Gods decreed that there must be three judges, not one, and so your choice of genre has doomed you, noble barbarian.

If This Story Was An X-Man It Would Be:
Selene. A 17,000 year old vampire that tears poo poo up but sets a poor example for the children by not wearing any clothes and posting white noise in the thread.

:drac:

So the other two baby bitch judges are prejudiced against fantasy, uh?

for real, thanks. gonna expand and submit this one within the month.

Black Griffon
Mar 12, 2005

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.


Getting in on this.

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart
In.

Edit: :siren: Self Flash-Rule :siren: - Story must be centered on the colonial tea trade.

Because gently caress you, that's why.

Erogenous Beef fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Jan 7, 2014

JamieTheD
Nov 4, 2011

LPer, Reviewer, Mad Welshman

(Yes, that's a self portrait)
In. I mean, how hard could it (twitch twitch :stare:) be?

No Longer Flaky
Nov 16, 2013

by Lowtax
I'm in, thanks for the crits guys. dialogue is my weak point as is every other part of writing. But can't get better if you don't write.

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autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
Roquelike? more like Turdlike

I'm in.

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