Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
God Over Djinn
Jan 17, 2005

onwards and upwards
Detritus (100 words)

One condom, empty.

Just under one condomful of semen, soaking into the kelly-green shag carpet.

One V2000 Video Compact Casette labeled "Side A: Return of the Jedi" in motherly handwriting.

Two bloody bottom sheets, one bloody and sweat-dampened top sheet, and one pair of grey size XXL boxer briefs, wadded into a ball and also, from the looks, bloody.

The left leg and approx. 1/3 of the lower torso of a department-store mannequin, circa Sears, 1970.

Sixteen identical Thomas the Tank Engine collectible figurines, arranged in the shape of a swastika.

Claw-marks; gelatinous brown stain.

(On the ceiling.)

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

a new study bible!
Feb 2, 2009



BIG DICK NICK
A Philadelphia Legend
Fly Eagles Fly


Jet Black

Cheaping out right now won’t do any good. Is it going to rip? No. It’s close, definitely, but just stretchy enough to provide the necessary snugness. Sure, it’ll need replacing every year at least, but they all do eventually. It’s warming up now, but once it gets going, stand back.

Listen to it. No, nothing is broken, sometimes the parts touch, shouldn’t cause you any issues. Yeah, and some fluid is leaking. That’s normal too. Just keep it refueled whenever it gets low and be sure to strap in. It’s capable of quite the ride.

Don’t want nobody getting hurt.

Anomalous Blowout
Feb 13, 2006

rock
ice
storm
abyss



It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars.

*
Acts
100 words

The bedroom’s striped wallpaper has a tendency to absorb the scent of what it witnesses. The stink leaks out slowly for days after, like a memory. Speckled sweat stains decorate the bedclothes on the mattress, fibres heavy with the filth of shed skin cells and secretions.

The windows face northward, which means they never catch any sunlight, they just blankly regard the stretch of next door’s big brick wall. In this neighbourhood, the lack of bars across the glass is either naïve or an invitation.

The door is heavy and it locks from the outside. At least there are curtains.

Nethilia
Oct 17, 2012

Hullabalooza '96
Easily Depressed
Teenagers Edition


Baby Momma
(Got you for 18 years)

Maybe this time when that son of a bitch knocks me up, he'll pay his drat child support.

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
Dear judges,

If you do not post results soon, the Mercedes porno fanfic will only get more bizarre. This is just the beginning.

sincerely,
Thunderdome

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Dear judges,

If you do not post results soon, the Mercedes porno fanfic will only get more bizarre. This is just the beginning.

sincerely,
Thunderdome

Hey Muffin, I respect you and I'mma let you finish, but Mercedes gives the best flash rules of all time. OF ALL TIME.

Something Something Go gently caress Yourself (66 words)

Black Jesus stood erect before a deep, moist cave. Shimmering in false moonlight, honey-dew trickled down its walls, a mackerel breeze beckoned him. And in He walked, to enfold himself in the cave's embrace, and then returned to the bright and spongy surface, like the face of a muffin in morning. This journey he repeated until the sun rose and she had to go to work.

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
To tug upon your lustful urges and bring forth from your loins a certain seminal inspiration, I supply Fingal's Cave, by Mendellssohn,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcogD-hHEYs

The short story Ping by Samuel Beckett

http://www.samuel-beckett.net/ping.html

and The Colossus by Fransico de Goya



all of which should serve as inspiration for your further interprompt scrawlings.

SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Jun 17, 2014

Entenzahn
Nov 15, 2012

erm... quack-ward
Hey Muffing I wrote a peom because I know you like peotry

Xavier, Sex and the Concept of Self
35 words

The size is unbelievable, so huge
the penetrating shaft, it fills the mouth,
exploring every corner, nook and cranny,
brushing teeth until they're void of dirt.
He waits outside; it tastes like mint. So huge.

lambeth
Aug 31, 2009
A Big Black Mess, A Hunk of Love

14 words


"You know that song by the Pixies?"

"Yeah?"

"It wasn't like that at all."

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

:siren: THUNDERDOME XCVII RESULTS :siren:

So between the forums falling apart and whatever the gently caress’s been going on with this interprompt, this has certainly been one of the more interesting Thunderdome weeks in recent memory. But as with all things, so too must this week’s contest pass into dust.

Let us first take a moment to acknowledge the dishonored dead. Kalyco, Sam., D.O.G.O.G.B.Y.N., Stereo, Angrymantium, and dmboogie, even with the gift of extra time, could not find it in themselves to grace us with so much as a terrible story.

As for those who did write, I didn’t think the overall standard was terrible this week, though I feel like we need to have a conversation about heroes (which is what I wanted to read about), and what differentiates a hero from a protagonist. I will elaborate more on this when I do my crits. Still, the majority of you wrote something that at least vaguely resembled a story, and many of you even seemed to be at least aware of the prompt.

There were a couple of strong contenders for the top rungs of this particular ladder of filth. Honorable Mentions go to God Over Djinn (who came within a hairsbreadth of winning), Jick Magger, and SurreptitiousMuffin (even if the latter DARED TO DISREGARD THE FLASH RULE THAT I SLAVED OVER FOR SECONDS). All of these gave us heroic, if imperfect, characters and a real sense of a struggle with the world in which they found themselves.

Kaishai takes the week. The other judges can speak for themselves, but in the end, this one, for me, came down to the last thing I asked for in the prompt, which was to make me give a drat. And that’s what this story did.

Dishonorable Mentions go to BrilliantFool, for giving us the Cliff’s Notes instead of the proper story, CommissarMega for an incoherent mess, and Cache Cab for wasting a halfway interesting premise on a morass of cliche and characters of whom “paper-thin” would be too kind a description.

But these were, for their sins, still technically stories. I’m not quite sure what you’d call the thing that FuschiaTude wrote, except “this week’s loser.”

Take it away, Kaishai!

docbeard fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 18, 2014

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









a message to all judges for ever

please link your loser's stories in your judgment post

that is all

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.
Thunderdome Week XCVIII: Music of the Night

Judges: Kaishai, Bad Seafood, and Chairchucker.

Songs can chill the human spine. To this day, I can't hear Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor without imagining a rotting Gothic castle. This week you're going to explore the power of music to haunt, to creep, to terrify: your prompt is to write a horror story inspired by a song the judges will assign to you.

There's a catch, however! These won't be dark songs. You won't be asked to conjure fright from "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" or "Smooth Criminal"; that would be too easy. Distilling dread from "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"? Now that will be a challenge.

You're largely free to let inspiration take you down what dark paths it will, but I don't want to see erotica or fanfiction. Psychological horror may win you more favor than squick and gore.

Sign-up deadline: Friday, June 20, 11:59 pm USA Eastern
Submission deadline: Sunday, June 22, 11:59 pm USA Eastern
Maximum word count: 1,200

Phantoms of the Opera:
Entenzahn (Song: "Stand By Me"): "Keeping the Darkness Away"
dmboogie: (Song: "Rawhide"): "An Urban Hunt"
Broenheim (Song: "Wind Beneath My Wings"): "In the Shadows"
Whalley (Song: "Take Me Home, Country Roads"): "The Song's Stuck In My Head (And I Kind Of Like It Now)"
Mercedes (Song: "Dog Police"): "Where are they coming from"
WeLandedOnTheMoon! (Song: "Walk Like an Egyptian"): "Living with the Curse of Married Life"
Fanky Malloons (Song: "Safety Dance")
Malefic Marmite (Song: "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)"): "Salt on the Steps"
Anomalous Blowout (Song: "Here I Go Again"): "Lizard"
kurona_bright (Song: "Dancing in the Street"): "The Smell of the City Streets (~ 975 words):"
curlingiron (Song: "Heaven Is a Place on Earth"): "Heaven and Hell"
Sitting Here (Song: "Down Under")
CommissarMega (Song: "Motteke! Sailor Fuku")
Fumblemouse (Song: "We Built This City"): "Marconi plays the mamba"
Nethilia (Song: "Pinball Wizard"): "A Mean Pinball"
Phobia (Song: "The Rainbow Connection")
Blade_of_tyshalle (Song: "Take On Me"): "Slowly Learning"
Obliterati (Song: "Love Shack"): "You Take the High Road and I'll Take the Low"
Grizzled Patriarch (Song: "Never Gonna Give You Up")
Nikaer Drekin (Song: "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"): "I've Got To Have My Way Now, Baby"
SurreptitiousMuffin (Song: "I'm a Believer")
PootieTang (Song: "My Favorite Things"): "Revenge of the Drum-stick Knight part 3: Money Never Sleeps Twice, OR, "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Just Write It An Hour Before The Deadline"." (Submitted past the deadline.)
Kellsterik (Song: "Forever Young")
lambeth (Song: "Rhythm of the Night")
PoshAlligator (Song: "Puttin' on the Ritz"): "Puttin' on the Ritz"
God Over Djinn (Song: "Holding Out for a Hero"): "The Man From Korreskine"
Benny the Snake (Song: "The Final Countdown")
Tyrannosaurus (Song: "Amazing Grace"): "Spring"
docbeard (Song: "Rio"): "The Dancer"
sebmojo (Song: "Hero")
theblunderbuss (Song: "Bicycle Race")
Teddybear (Song: "Don't Worry Be Happy"): "It Will Soon Pass, Celebrate It"
Drunk Nerds (Song: "Let's Dance"): "Let's Dance"
Toaster Beef (Song: "Cotton Eye Joe"): "If It Hadn't Been"
crabrock (Song: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"): "Things Heard in the Woods"

Kaishai fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Jun 26, 2014

Entenzahn
Nov 15, 2012

erm... quack-ward
in

dmboogie
Oct 4, 2013

In with a :toxx:.

flerp
Feb 25, 2014
In

Wungus
Mar 5, 2004

In even though I know I got zero free time over the next week

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.




Sign me the gently caress up!!!

a new study bible!
Feb 2, 2009



BIG DICK NICK
A Philadelphia Legend
Fly Eagles Fly


Signing up for your best song, please.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?
Hahaha, yasss i lov it.

(IN)

Malefic Marmite
Jan 10, 2011

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Great prompt. I'm in.

Anomalous Blowout
Feb 13, 2006

rock
ice
storm
abyss



It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars.

*
What will it be?

In the Name of Love?

In the Air Tonight?

Invisible Touch?

In a Big Country?

In My Life?

Either way, I'm In the Mood.

kurona_bright
Mar 21, 2013
Finals are over, so I'm back in! (Slice-of-life psychological horror on a train?)

curlingiron
Dec 15, 2006

b l o o p

poo poo yes, let's do this. In, motherfuckers!

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Yes I will do this in please

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Oho, I'm in once more! And since I have nothing else to lose, I will give a flash rule to the judges: I want the most infuriatingly anime song/music video you lot can unleash upon me :unsmigghh:

EDIT: WHile I'm asking for things, can I have a crit on my latest story? I was rather proud of it :smith:

CommissarMega fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Jun 18, 2014

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer
In. This mouse is gonna rock the house in a radio-friendly, 3 minute maximum format.

Nethilia
Oct 17, 2012

Hullabalooza '96
Easily Depressed
Teenagers Edition


In like a delicious R&B song.

Phobia
Apr 25, 2011

I'm a suave detective with a heart of gold in hot pursuit of the malevolent, manipulative
MIAMI MUTILATOR
and the deranged degenerates who only want their
15 MINUTES OF FAME.


OCK.
IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR, SHE CRIED "MORE, MORE, MORE!"

Blade_of_tyshalle
Jul 12, 2009

If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

I'll take a prompt, as well.

Obliterati
Nov 13, 2012

Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.
Thunderdome is forever.
I'm in.

Grizzled Patriarch
Mar 27, 2014

These dentures won't stop me from tearing out jugulars in Thunderdome.



In as hell.

Gau
Nov 18, 2003

I don't think you understand, Gau.
GAU'S OPINIONS ON WEEK XCVII or A Few Gems Amongst Turds of Varying Size and Odor


When Judas saved Jesus - Cache Cab

Terrible, no motivations whatsoever. Who the gently caress are these people? Why are they there? Who is your protagonist talking to at any given moment? You seem to want us to fill in this cliche world without actually giving us anything to latch on to. The "temptations" (both by the bad guys and good guys) are way too short to have any impact. The opening quote is overwrought and gives me nothing about the story. Missed a loser's spot by virtue of the other two judges hating the losing story slightly more.


Scapegoat - CommissarMega

Your "introduction" gives us so little about the story or setting that I'm lost almost halfway in. This feeling will not go away as I wade through overwrought scrawls about Vichy France. Who are these obnoxiously French people and why the gently caress do I care? The middle "background" bit of your story could be a flashback or dialogue or literally anything better than the author just telling me what this guy is like. I end with literally no idea what the gently caress happens in this story. Someone saved some Jews, someone died (perhaps they were secret police?).


Old Ways - Meeple

I enjoyed this one. The accents add some character to the story. It's rough in places, but sets up scenes well and definitely gives me an idea for who these people are, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. The ending is weak, mostly because I feel like the story should either pay off for the characters or they should get screwed in the end in true cyberpunk style.


The Bottom Line - Entenzahn

Ugh, your opening loving blows. It grabs me and then does absolutely nothing. Let me summarize this story: Dude with a price on his head tries ranching, fails. Takes a job with a literal psychopath. Dude's wife and kid(?) visit him at "work." Psychopath sells him down the river. Dude blows everything up.

Names aren't characters. Are you sure one of your characters should say "true that?" Are you certain your protagonist is not the worst criminal ever? Why does he work for a cartoonishly psychotic dude? There's a decent seed of a story here but the details and execution are utter poo poo.

Also, dynamite does not work that way.


Small Town Justice - Broenheim

I enjoyed this. Well, I enjoyed this a lot more than everything I'd read before this. It's rough in places, but the idea comes through. My big issue is that there's no payoff, the story just sort of...ends. You need to be clearer in your action scenes, I had no idea the cops were there for the protagonist until they arrest him. Without a satisfactory resolution, though, this story barely makes the mid pile.


Sarah, Underwater - God Over Djinn

I'm sold on Sarah and Caroline. It definitely feels authentic to the way girls this age think and treat each other - I feel like I could know this kid. I want to help her as the story goes on. The ending gives her actual development, a change in character that will matter in the future. My only slight criticism is that the ending could be clearer as to whether Sarah's changes are more of the jealous farce or an actual, real character development.


Sundown Towns - Nethilia

This is a good story written terribly. Interesting concepts presented with zero context. I guess it's set in a segregated, racist future - but black people have mobile phones? I want to feel something for the main character, but everyone else is just a throwaway cardboard cutout.


Making The Grade - WeLandedOnTheMoon!

A good story well-executed. I nominated this for an HM. A few nitpicks: your main character is well developed, but your other characters need to be better put together - even if it's only through Maggie's eyes. I'm uncertain when and if Violet is being sarcastic. Saying "Hey man" seems out of character for Maggie.

Is there such thing as "remedial" Algebra II?


The Whisperers - BrilliantFool

This feels like two stories: one awful, incomplete bore about a guy overhearing people talk poo poo about someone he cares about who is dying and a second, decent one about words and their consequences. I get what the writer is trying to accomplish, but I feel like the second bit would work better expanded without the overwrought introduction.


The Mirage - Jick Magger

This is an A+ delivery on the prompt. The protagonist is doing an illegal thing for good reasons, the characters are illuminated through events and interactions, and you delivers the end well. My only real criticism is that I don't get how someone walked from Guatemala to the US-Mexico border.


Ceiling Guy - V for Vegas

Okay, if the dude is going crazy, then you need to go a bit further with that. If he's not, and there's actually a dude in his ceiling, then there's a metaphor here that I'm missing.

Oddly, I kinda like it. I just can't figure out why you'd write this without going somewhere with it.


Writing on the Wall - Kaishai

This story is solid. It takes the prompt somewhere really interesting and sells me on a character who is having a really hard time making their way in a world that sucks for him. Something interesting happens in the end and the character shows their true colors until the end. This is how to take a prompt somewhere the judges didn't expect.

I think taggers might have been slightly more creative in ruining his art. Maybe a crude phallus.


Small Victories - Nikaer Drekin

Okay, so he was surprised when his estranged bitch of a wife decided to have him shot? Why did she have him shot? Why were they estranged? What/who was he originally waiting for? None of this is happening for a reason. Escaped an HM by not being the biggest turd in the pile.


Constable Xinling lands the graveyard shift - Surreptitious Muffin

Chen meets the prompt perfectly and lives in a world (at least, in the story) where good is pointless. The cultural perspective of the story adds to it instead of just being a curiosity. I think if the story has a fault, it's that it cleaves too closely to the noir inspirations for the prompt.


Getting His Wings - Fumblemouse

My eyes rolled progressively further into the back of my head as I read this. The story spends too long dwelling on the psychology of taking pictures with a camera phone (wait, do embedded reporters get camera phones?) and then drops into a cliche morality play about the not-VC who may or may not be trying to trick the naive photographer.

Oh, and there's an explosion. Ugh.


Justice is a Good Machine - Sebmojo

This is well-written but doesn't really evoke anything in me, not even the derision I felt when reading the giant turds. You need to find an emotion and yank on it. The descriptions were interesting, and I definitely feel like I could see the setting in my mind's eye.


The Climb - Fuschia Tude

Farmer Jones and Completely Ignoring the Prompt: An Incoherent Tale of How Gau Lost Two Minutes of Life


Fresh Powder - Grizzled Patriach

Okay story except for the fact that is just stops and nothing changes. I feel for the protagonist and his charge. I want him to get better. Should probably be clearer about what is going on with the disease. You had 480 more words, you should have done something with them.


O.G. - Tyrannosaurus

Good story. I like the characterization; I believe both of these people and understand their motivations. Didn't like the inherent hypocrisy of the uncle's actions, but it felt real. The slang hit me completely wrong, and the turn is after-school special. Your last sentence has two verbs, perhaps you wanted an "or" in there?

Nikaer Drekin
Oct 11, 2012

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020
Put me in, coach

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
In.

Wouldn't it be better if instead of the judges picking songs, we each picked a song, which then got randomly assigned to someone else?

PootieTang
Aug 2, 2011

by XyloJW

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Wouldn't it be better if instead of the judges picking songs, we each picked a song, which then got randomly assigned to someone else?

I'm IN with a :toxx: for not submitting last time. Also this guy has a good idea.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

In.

Wouldn't it be better if instead of the judges picking songs, we each picked a song, which then got randomly assigned to someone else?

It'd be fun, but not better: with judges choosing, at least one judge is guaranteed to be familiar with the song in question already. That should make it easier and more enjoyable for us to determine how well you used your source material; easier and more enjoyable judging will mean faster results. Everybody wins.

Besides, do you think I'd give up the schadenfreude in subjecting you all to my musical taste?

Kaishai fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jun 18, 2014

curlingiron
Dec 15, 2006

b l o o p

Plus, if the judges are choosing no one will end up with this song, which is what I would pick because I hate you all (and also myself).

Entenzahn
Nov 15, 2012

erm... quack-ward

Entenzahn posted:

:siren: LIMITED TIME OFFER :siren:

Line crit a story from week 96 and open your post with the secret codephrase

Thank you, may I have another :)

to recieve a FREE LINE CRIT from me, Entenzahn, judge of Thunderdome week 96 in all his glory.

Offer expires when I start looking through the posts some time next week. Posts can be made in the farm or here. Don’t delay!

Okay I guess nobody wanted this? Or maybe you chucklefucks only scrolled down to your crit and bailed. But you would never do that would you because that is dumb. Anyway, this expires in 24 hours.

Also I'll give any dm/losers from this week a free line crit if they want. But they also have to use the secret codephrase. Because I like making you say dumb stuff.

Lily Catts
Oct 17, 2012

Show me the way to you
(Heavy Metal)
Crits from me might be delayed because my PC's video card died and I'd rather not crit on a touch screen. But expect them before Saturday.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
Do me, Treemantooth.




Zahn is German for tooth shut up ok my mum thinks it's funny

  • Locked thread