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JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
in

JcDent fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Jun 30, 2015

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dmboogie
Oct 4, 2013

aaaaaaaaa

in

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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



In gimme a dept

flerp
Feb 25, 2014
I guess I’m the grumpy judge this week. It’s not that I thought these were bad stories, none of them besides one lucky fellow stood out as extremely awful, just everyone stood on the average line, some standing on the lower end of average and some on the higher end of average. Only one story stood out to me as anything past average. And for only 8 stories submitted, that’s a pretty impressive thing, I think. Overall, this was actually a pretty good showing in that average is usually the best compliment you can give to a TD week. Anyways, here’s grumpy crits.

Entenzahn

This story started out normally and decently. Guy wants corndog, gets things to get corndog. I even felt some tension as the guy tries to get the corndog and the ion storm is coming. But the corndog comes alive and we jump into WTF area. Then it starts laughing (i assumed cackling like an over-the-top villain) and yelling. I laughed at some parts, but the twist from regular dystopia to wacky sentient corndog world was way too sudden, and though it made me laugh through sheer unexpectedness, I still knew what it was. Stupid, but glorious in its stupidity.

Don’t pull this trick again though, it only works once in a life time.

Thranguy

Fantastic title. Off the bat, I want to know who the king of crows is and what’s his offer. You lost all good will of that by not telling me who the king of crows was or what the offer is in the first paragraph of your story for whatever reason. Your story starts off pretty boring action wise, but interesting in its surreality. You get across the husband’s affliction through boring exposition. That's bad. Your dialogue is handled well, but your prose is clumsy. The big problem I have is plotting with this story. Characters just seem to do things for no particular reason. Frank just starts ranting and becoming more crazy because Georgia saw him change even though that changes almost nothing in their relationship. Then Frank out of nowhere offers Georgia an offer, which just feels like you going "oh yeah, poo poo, I have to write a story with a conflict". Twist said that this was ok by him because of the devil waits to give you the offer when he knows the person will accept it, but I never felt a change inside of Georgia that made me think she would accept the offer. I liked something I missed the first time, but Frank took the husband’s life. There was the connection I needed in this story to bridge the two characters. Don't know why I didn't notice that. Still weird to me that he said Corvex, maybe that’s what Frank called himself? Idk. Then she says no, dude leaves for whatever reason after a while, and then husband comes back and decides to leave town for some reason. The problem I have with all of these moments is that they just seem to occur. Like, why didn’t Frank leave earlier if he was bored? Why didn’t Frank offer the deal earlier? Why didn’t the husband leave town if that’s what he wanted to do? You don’t show the characters change in any way, so their decisions seem weird to me. As I thought about this story more and more, I disliked it more. Georgia was the most boring character perspective you could’ve chosen. There was little action and little conflict until the deal is offered and then she just says no. I really should have pushed for this not to be HMed, which I regret as my duty as a judge. This was on the higher end of average, though, and probably the second best story, so getting an HM for that isn’t that big of a deal. However, I don’t regret going to the beach. So, I guess you get an HM and I get to go to the beach so everything worked out, right?

Lazy Beggar

Story was bogged down way too hard in description. Your character meanders around wondering “what? why? huh? where am i? who’s footsteps are these?” and goes through all these details that dont mean anything to me. The blurry face is a cool idea but doesnt make sense in the story. Then you get to the big reveal and its a boring affair about a boring character all I know about is that he has a blurry face and is really confused. This was dumb. And bad. I wanted this to DM, but it was loads better then Doctor Idle so thank him for making GBS threads the bed so bad that the others judges didnt notice how bad your bed making GBS threads was.

Benny Profane

This was close to HMing, but then I realized that this story was average in almost every conceivable way. Your character has good voice, but doesn’t do much in the story except make a deal, sit there for a while, then get revenge. I like the swindling witch hunter guy, and I liked how you showed him to be swindling rather than tell me. It didn’t feel overt, but natural. Other than that, nothing occurs. Decent words, good voice, kind of boring story. When the last half of your story is taken up with your character sitting for a couple of months/years, you know you’ve got a problem with action in your story.

Fausty

Not good, but not bad. This was just a revenge porn story and did nothing to change that. I had no reason to care about the main character except his family was murdered and I know nothing about the family and what they meant to him. Then he gets a gun, shoots the dude, gets shoot, dies when the guy who gave him the gun called him for some reason. Didn’t understand why that dude called him, nor why I should care. Maybe it was supposed to be surreal since everyone was trying to do that? Idk.

Doctor Idle

Normally, as a judge, I line-by-line the losing story. This week, I’m not going to bother. You give us a collection of scenes where your protag, who I am going to assume is Greed or Gluttony or Lust or something equally poetic/stupid, sees himself and watch people do things that hold no significance to me whatsoever. Then there’s some random musing and boring poo poo and idk who cares. You didn’t write a story, nor did you write anything interesting. You wasted me and my judge’s time with whatever the gently caress this and I hate you for that.

Grizzled Patriarch

This I also should’ve pushed not to HM. I didn’t like this as much as Thranguy’s, mostly because there are no real characters to latch onto. The mom just drinks herself while watching her husband flirt in front of her, her husband is cheating or stuck in a loveless marriage for whatever reason, and the kid is really distant. Everyone who I can feel attached to are either weak and passive, or an rear end in a top hat. Then the one person I’m supposed to like is just weirdly distant due to the writing. I can sympathize with the kid, and I can feel his character, but he just feels distant, like every time I try to get close to him, I don’t. I think it’s because the descriptions feel not like from the first-person view of the kid, but from a third-person narrator. So I don’t get that connection to the kid, and that hurts it. I get the character’s motivation, “because it was the most cruel thing I could do” - great loving line btw, I just don’t feel it. I don’t feel like I really know this kid or feel his pain. I can imagine it and I know it’s there, but only through experience and not through the story itself. Then the mom saves her and you give her the image of a “Byzantine halo,” which I am still trying to parse. I know what you mean, and my interpretation, I think, is that her suffering (since halos denote saints who usually did in other ways) taught her lessons in life. But it also has a savior image to it, but while she did save her from the water, she didnt really save the kid from anything really. So all in all, I felt this was really average. It was a well written story with a lot of good details but the story was plain and the characters unlikable or distant. However, this was on the higher end of quality of other stories, but it never felt like it went really above it even though this week was incredibly average. You just surpassed their averageness by a little bit. There's a lot of moments, a lot of little pieces that create these small, cool things, but I felt like the bigger picture wasn't finished. Like you have a jigsaw puzzle that's not finished, and you just have a bunch of pictures spread out across the floor but I can't see exactly what you're trying to make. At least you ended it, kinda. Though you missed a chance to call a halo a nimbus, so ill never forgive you for that.

Sitting Here

And here we get to the best story. Much like how Doctor Idle easily took the lose, Sitting Here just waltzed in here at the last second and just laughed at all your puny stories and easily took the throne. Milkweed is instantly characterized, motivation clear, and sympathetic. She does things to try and reach her goal. She is a good character and if the story was only Milkweed, I’d probably say this story would still win. But, then there’s the June parts. When I first read this, I thought the June parts were the worst part, and that they actually hurt the story. Now that I think about them, they are subtle compliments to Milkweed’s stories rather a story all on their own, which is what I thought was the initial plan. You know two stories that link together at the end. June doesn’t have a clear motivation, much like humans don’t usually have motivations in life at times and we just kind of do things. She’s relatable and curious and wants to know what everyone else is thinking. In a strange way, that explains her desire to be part of the hivemind, because if everyone thought the same thing, she’d know what everyone was thinking. I don’t know if I’d like that, but maybe June would. It really does seem like she would even though I feel like I don’t know her that well. Not only that, but the simple desires and actions done by Milkweed are contrasted by the complex thoughts and reasoning June has. Milkweed just wants to be free, but June wants to know what everyone is thinking and wants to be a part of something big and know everything about everyone.The simplicity of Milkweed shows her animal nature, while June’s complexity shows her human side, which relates to the whole “the grass is greener” style of story, but it works in a much more subtle way that I did not notice until I looked deeper at this story. I can actually relate to this because as a kid I wanted to be a dog cause dogs are cool and also, when one of my friend’s mom asked me why, I said “it would be so much simpler.” And it would be, if you think about it. That’s what I like, in that you hide June’s desires and motivations because they aren’t obvious to us as humans which contrasts with the nature of bees where there is an entire hivemind and everyone has a clear cut goal. Maybe I’m looking too deep into this story actually, but the June’s parts have a lot of subtlety to them, and I’d like to think you’re a better writer so didn’t just throw in those scenes because you didn’t know what they were doing in the story. There’s a lot going under the hood of this story, I think, and maybe I’m overanalyzing it, but still, this was the best story not just for the subtle parts, but the overt parts. It was well written, clear, relatable character with clear, relatable motivations, and some subtlety to add depth to an otherwise basic, but fantastic story. Well done, really.

flerp fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Jun 30, 2015

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

Pete Zah posted:

Yo, did you get my job app? I have customer service experience and can totally pass a urine test.
Wait, a hair test? What is this North Korea?

In.

Your character is a Cart Pusher! Envied by their coworkers because they get to spend all day in natural light and real air, your character knows that the parking lot is actually a battleground where cars and carts dance the endless waltz of war.


Congratulations on your character's promotion to Quality Assurance. They walk the floor and tidy racks, call in spills and injuries, and generally hang around giving the impression that someone gives a drat about customers' experiences.

dmboogie posted:

aaaaaaaaa

in

Most people think working in the Produce Section would be boring. And, on good days, it is...

The Saddest Rhino posted:

In gimme a dept

Your character is a Shift Supervisor. Everything is terrible. Life is suffering. They're not even salaried. Holidays no longer exist. Why do they keep showing up day after day? Could they stop if they wanted to? No. Voidmart needs them. Voidmart loves them. Voidmart will never let them go.

Screaming Idiot
Nov 26, 2007

JUST POSTING WHILE JERKIN' MY GHERKIN SITTIN' IN A PERKINS!

BEATS SELLING MERKINS.
Screw it, I'm in.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
This is just getting more and more like Space Station 13: The Prompt. I love it.

SkaAndScreenplays
Dec 11, 2013

by Pragmatica

VOIDMART
5150 Fountainhead Crossing
Libertyville, IL 60048
ATTN CEO/HUMAN RESOURCES
Care of: Sitting Here


Greetings,

My name is redacted I will be working at VoidmartTM for the next few months. This was arranged by the board of directors of Voidmart's parent company for reasons I am not at liberty to discuss. It is my firm belief that my life experiences make me an ideal candidate for several departments within your company. My work history is a checkered one, and many of the positions I have held are not of a nature one would discuss in polite company. Needless to say my previous employers equipped me with a diverse skill set with which your company could make good use of. I have strict non-disclosure agreements with the companies, syndicates, and governments I have contracted for in the past and thus am unable to disclose the traditional applicant questions regarding: problems I have had with customers or coworkers, and times I was put in charge of an operation. In regards to my skills however, please note that I:

Am Fluent in 6 Foreign Languages (Portuguese, Russian, Persian, Pashtu, French, and Korean).
Have a working knowledge of network security and information systems and I am competent in the field of digital intrusion.
Trained in several martial arts disciplines and am EMT certified in the State of Illinois.
Have experience in high-risk negotiations and financial transactions.
Am familiar with the Material Safety Data Sheets of all commercially available chemicals, as well as their chemical interactions.
Have experience in physical security and surveillance systems and am familiar with their deployment.
Highly skilled in printing and graphical design. (Please notice that I have duplicated the Voidmart/i]TM confidential internal-use-only letterhead for this correspondence)

You will notice that I did not include the standard application or resume. Please do not construe this as contempt for your application process. My work history demands anonymity, a virtue I believe you as the CEO of VoidmartTM can both appreciate and respect. I will be waiting for you in your office before start of business Monday to discuss my start date and payment requirements. I look forward to meeting you.

I have no reservations regarding department, as I am sure you will place me where my skills will be put to the best use. Therefore consider me

IN

Regards
[i]Redacted

Entenzahn
Nov 15, 2012

erm... quack-ward
Pleas guve me jab. Thanx

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

Screaming Idiot posted:

Screw it, I'm in.

Your character is the chief engineer, aka Maintenance Guy. They're not exactly sure how Voidmart works or why, but it's their job to keep it that way.


SkaAndScreenplays posted:


VOIDMART
5150 Fountainhead Crossing
Libertyville, IL 60048
ATTN CEO/HUMAN RESOURCES
Care of: Sitting Here


Greetings,

My name is redacted I will be working at VoidmartTM for the next few months. This was arranged by the board of directors of Voidmart's parent company for reasons I am not at liberty to discuss. It is my firm belief that my life experiences make me an ideal candidate for several departments within your company. My work history is a checkered one, and many of the positions I have held are not of a nature one would discuss in polite company. Needless to say my previous employers equipped me with a diverse skill set with which your company could make good use of. I have strict non-disclosure agreements with the companies, syndicates, and governments I have contracted for in the past and thus am unable to disclose the traditional applicant questions regarding: problems I have had with customers or coworkers, and times I was put in charge of an operation. In regards to my skills however, please note that I:

Am Fluent in 6 Foreign Languages (Portuguese, Russian, Persian, Pashtu, French, and Korean).
Have a working knowledge of network security and information systems and I am competent in the field of digital intrusion.
Trained in several martial arts disciplines and am EMT certified in the State of Illinois.
Have experience in high-risk negotiations and financial transactions.
Am familiar with the Material Safety Data Sheets of all commercially available chemicals, as well as their chemical interactions.
Have experience in physical security and surveillance systems and am familiar with their deployment.
Highly skilled in printing and graphical design. (Please notice that I have duplicated the VoidmartTM confidential internal-use-only letterhead for this correspondence)

You will notice that I did not include the standard application or resume. Please do not construe this as contempt for your application process. My work history demands anonymity, a virtue I believe you as the CEO of VoidmartTM can both appreciate and respect. I will be waiting for you in your office before start of business Monday to discuss my start date and payment requirements. I look forward to meeting you.

I have no reservations regarding department, as I am sure you will place me where my skills will be put to the best use. Therefore consider me

IN

Regards
Redacted

ATTN: ALL STAFF AND PERSONEL

I'm pleased to welcome redacted to the team! Please give them your warmest welcome and comply promptly with any instructions they give you. Do not hesitate to give them access to any part of the store, including restricted areas. Do not attempt to revert any alterations they make to merchandise displays. Familiarize yourselves with any changes they make to the Point of Sale (POS) system. Do not make eye contact unless spoken to by redacted. If a Customer mentions redacted, please adhere to best practices as outlined in section 3A of the Employee Compliance Manual.

Have a VoidTastic day!


Entenzahn posted:

Pleas guve me jab. Thanx

Your character knows that any complex machine runs at least in part on human pathos and misery. You are Voidmart's Branch Therapist, and it's your job to minimize employee turnover.

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006
Okay. In.

theblunderbuss
Jul 4, 2010

I find dead men rout
more easily.
Let's do this. In.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


I'm in.

:toxx:

Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.
Ing.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Just a reminder, some of you will get the same job/department as other people.


Megazver posted:

Okay. In.

Your character is in Loss Prevention. They get to go into the super secret control room with all the cameras, and sometimes even tackle senile old grandmas who try to wander out of the store without paying for their merchandise.

theblunderbuss posted:

Let's do this. In.

Most people think working in the Produce Section would be boring. And, on good days, it is...



Your character is a Fitting Room Attendant. Their job is sort of a mix between running the pet department and maintaining the bathrooms, only they have to give fashion advice, too.



Your character is the Bean Inspector for the Golden Bean Cafe and Coffee shop. Only patented Voidmart Beans are allowed in Voidmart Golden Bean Coffee. Their job is to keep competitor's beans from infiltrating your customer's cups. Voidmart Golden Bean Coffee make the happiest customers.

SadisTech
Jun 26, 2013

Clem.
In.

Killer-of-Lawyers
Apr 22, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020
I'm sure that my C-store experince will transfer nicely to this prompt, and not end with me gibbering in the middle of a horrific hurricane evacuation flashback.

In and :toxx:

Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

In.

cargohills
Apr 18, 2014

In with a :toxx: for being a lovely failure last time (and also most of the times before that)

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
In and :toxx: because I'm a wretched failure who must redeem herself in the cashier slave pit.

ButtWolf
Dec 30, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
gently caress it, go ahead and flash me. I'm a sucker for punishment.

TheAnomaly
Feb 20, 2003
In

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

Your character is a Cart Pusher! Envied by their coworkers because they get to spend all day in natural light and real air, your character knows that the parking lot is actually a battleground where cars and carts dance the endless waltz of war.


Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

I'm sure that my C-store experince will transfer nicely to this prompt, and not end with me gibbering in the middle of a horrific hurricane evacuation flashback.

In and :toxx:

Beep boop. Your character is in Electronics. They're an expert in all mainstream games, consoles, and gadgets plus the many Voidmart Licensed alternatives, though customers often complain the latter don't usually work as expected...



Congratulations! Your character gets to help Crabrock's character on Restroom Duty! If it's yellow, they're mellow, if it's brown, they frown. God knows what they've seen and heard.


cargohills posted:

In with a :toxx: for being a lovely failure last time (and also most of the times before that)

Your character also works in The Back, taking in freight and stocking shelves. Sidenote, customers have an annoying habit of thinking anything, even out-of-stock items, can be found in The Back. Usually, they're wrong. Occasionally, they're not...


RedTonic posted:

In and :toxx: because I'm a wretched failure who must redeem herself in the cashier slave pit.

Your character is the Head Barista and Junior Assistant Bean Inspector at the Golden Bean Café.


jimcunningham posted:

gently caress it, go ahead and flash me. I'm a sucker for punishment.

Flashrule: Hey, this expired months ago. Do you think it's still any good?


Quit getting high on your own supply cause your character is a Pharmacist. Voidmart carries an extensive range of generic and irregular medications, for under-the-weather customers who aren't fussy about what's in their pills.

Lazy Beggar
Dec 9, 2011

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Bugger it. I'm in.

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?
In!

unburied
Jun 8, 2015
Still want new blood? I have been observing a few weeks and I think I am ready. I will try not being bad. Try.

Give me a job.

In.

Edit: Does Voidmart close or is it open 24/7?

unburied fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jun 30, 2015

Djeser
Mar 22, 2013


it's crow time again

unburied posted:

Still want new blood?

Thunderdome is a rift upon a blood nexus upon a hololith upon a milk girl.

We can always use more new blood.

ButtWolf
Dec 30, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Just to be clear and not screw myself: under 1300 words right? Sorry I'm new and I suck.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






want more blood?

no, we need more blood, because this is thunderdome, but instead of gasoline our sweet old timey muscle cars run on crit blood

newtestleper
Oct 30, 2003

jimcunningham posted:

Just to be clear and not screw myself: under 1300 words right? Sorry I'm new and I suck.

it's a minimum limit. If you'd bothered to check even one story from last week you would have seen that typically thunderdome stories range from three to five thousand words.

ButtWolf
Dec 30, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

newtestleper posted:

it's a minimum limit. If you'd bothered to check even one story from last week you would have seen that typically thunderdome stories range from three to five thousand words.

I did. Most were under 1200. I think you're just loving with me now.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






newtestleper posted:

it's a minimum limit. If you'd bothered to check even one story from last week you would have seen that typically thunderdome stories range from three to five thousand words.

didn't last time you do this you got somebody DQed?

in other words, keep it up.

ButtWolf
Dec 30, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
St. Maria
1,299 words


Milburn studied his reflection for the twelfth time today. Most people would say it was vanity. Somehow, it was more than that.

“Look at this immaculate, hot cocoa drinking motherfucker!” he exclaimed, enjoying a moment of pure revelation at the sight of his slicked-back onyx hair. He pursed his lips as he took a sip from his mug of hot cocoa. Unsurprisingly, his own face was patterned perfectly around the porcelain. His lips remained pursed. He carefully, almost as if in a trance, kissed the mirrored alternate universe version of himself.

“Hurry the gently caress up! You’ve got a line a mile long! I’ve got to empty my bag!” A wildly ignorant sounding man named Barley was banging on the bathroom door with his gnarled, clubby ham-fist.

Milburn opened the employee bathroom door to find Barley shaking and sweating. His thick, green framed glasses were fogged over. Barley rushed in as fast as he possibly could, which happens to be fairly slow for a human.

From outside the bathroom, Milburn could see a line of customers, about a dozen long, waiting in front the pharmacy. He adjusted the button line on his purple dress shirt and pulled up his black wristbands.

Ali was frantically counting pills. She put them into a semi-transparent green bottle. Next step was to take the sticker from the printer and slap it around the cylinder. Bag it. Place it near the register.

“Milburn get on the register, please!” Ali wasn’t sure if he heard her. Her pace slowed as Milburn jaunted through the side door and stepped in front of the register.

Fifteen minutes later, the line was gone. It was just Ali and Milburn. It was after 9 o’clock and the rest of the night would be spent pre-filling, doing paperwork, and making an effort not to explode from boredom.

“What’re you doing tomorrow night?” Milburn asked, not entirely interested in the answer.

“Party at Bones’ I guess. I might just down a bottle of vodka and see if I can skip the entire weekend.” Even through dry wit, you could hear the truth to Ali’s words. She was rifling through pill bottles in a cabinet under the register. “Hey, this expired months ago, do you think it’s still any good?” Ali handed the bottle to Milburn and went back to pillaging old bottles while awaiting his judgment.

“It’ll have lost it’s potency. Better double up on it.” He handed the bottle back to her. “I’m gonna go out back for a bit.”

Ali takes Ativan for anxiety. Ativan gives her a headache. Ali takes Naprosyn for the headaches. Naprosyn makes her nauseated. Ali takes Phenergan for the nausea. Phenergan makes her short of breath. Ali has an Albuterol inhaler because she thinks she has asthma. Albuterol gives her anxiety. Ali also takes any narcotic she can get her hands on. She started stealing her mother’s pain pills just a few at a time. Between her parents five knee surgeries and a back surgery, and some wisdom teeth extractions and minor maladies, the house was flooded with them when Ali was a teen. Ali had become very depressed right after she graduated from high school. She was reticent to seek help. She thought daily about taking as many pills as she could, to end her life. She really didn’t have much to be depressed about. Ali’s parents, even though they are medically disabled now, were fairly wealthy. There was no abuse. They weren’t very strict, always open and loving. Ali just hated life and began to think there was no point.

Milburn’s eyes were bloodshot and puffy when he stepped back in to the pharmacy. He smelled like a skunk and according to Ali, kind of looked like one too. An almost silver streak was starting to diffuse through his mid-length black hair, starting at the tip of his widow’s peak. Ali laughed to herself.

“What’s funny?” Milburn asked, thinking he must having something on his face.

“Nothing. Want one?” Ali tilted the open pill bottle towards his hand as he opened it.

“To immortality!” Milburn exclaimed before they both took the pills down. “Wait, what was that? Doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “James isn’t throwing a party by the way. Someone is getting moved out. He wouldn’t tell me who it is.”

“How the hell does he know that? Is it him? Can’t be! He doesn’t do anything except give people road rash from the parking lot and share his weed. I do like that about him, I suppose.” Ali was very interested in who was being moved out. She was doing a mental inventory of all VoidMart employees.

“Who cares? It’s not him, it’s not me, it’s definitely not you!” Milburn realized that his words may have come off harsh as soon as he said them. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it like that. Well, I mean, you’re not really trying are you?”

Ali was upset for a mere second that he would say something like that, but she couldn’t be angry because he was right. She hadn’t been trying. She hadn’t been trying to do anything other than stay high and make it through another day. She liked attending the parties. She liked most of the overnight shift. They were all like her in some way. Misguided. Misunderstood. Hateful, but somehow lovely. She was almost having fun here. This worried her more than anything.

Ali and Milburn were now both flipping through their mental rolodexes, speculating.

“It’s not Barley.” Ali said with total confidence.

“Why not? He’s not smart enough to do anything that would hurt the company. He doesn’t make a fuss.” Milburn quickly snapped. He has a soft spot for Barley.

“He jerks off three or four times per shift. He does do all of James’ work, but he’s still pretty lazy and his anger is still kinda scary.” Ali pointed out.

“True. What about Isaac? He goes to church. He’s a good boy. Very friendly to the customers.” Milburn was sure he had figured it out.

“Isaac was out three weeks ago.” Ali tried not to say it in a way that made Milburn look stupid. “It’s Maria. Right?”

Both of them tried to think of any flaws that Maria had. After a good while of brain-racking, they both conceded and joined in agreement that Maria would be the next to be moved out.

Just at that time, a dark figure descended the steps from the security room above the electronics department. An announcement for all employees to gather around the stairs was made over the store’s overly loud intercom system. Demas Kantrul was a very large, very Dutch man. His English was good, but his voice was so deep and guttural, it was hard to understand him. He had ebony skin and an in impossibly smooth bald head. It’s like glass.

Through his thick accent, he yelled at the straggling employees to hurry to him. He was somehow louder than the intercom. “As some of you have heard, someone on this shift is moving on. Maria Carpenter!” It was not a shock to Ali and Milburn. Others were disappointed that it wasn’t them. Some were jealous and full of rage. Ali and Milburn applauded, joined by a few more wonderful VoidMart employees.

Maria, an older lady of about fifty years old, stepped through crowd and knelt at Demas’ feet. Demas placed his hand on her head. An intense halo of pulsing light adorned Maria’s head. In a few seconds, she was gone.

Ali was back to the pharmacy, where Milburn was already relaxing, sitting on the countertop. Ali put her elbows on the counter and leaned back. “Think we’ll ever make it out?” Milburn asked Ali, hoping she’ll say yes.

“If not, I’ll kill myself again.”

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

Lazy Beggar posted:

Bugger it. I'm in.

Your character works in Returns and Exchanges. Store policy states that all animals must still be alive to be eligible for return.



Your character works in Plants and Gardening Supplies. Their green thumb probably comes from the questionable chemicals they spray on the plants every day.


unburied posted:

Still want new blood? I have been observing a few weeks and I think I am ready. I will try not being bad. Try.

Give me a job.

In.

Edit: Does Voidmart close or is it open 24/7?

Your character works in the Baby Supply Department. Everything a parent needs to raise another cherished Voidmart customer.

To answer your question, Voidmart does close sometimes, but other times it's open 24 hours. Hope that helps.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

YOU CAN'T FIRE ME I QUIT

That is, I quit not being in.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

docbeard posted:

YOU CAN'T FIRE ME I QUIT

That is, I quit not being in.

A store like Voidmart is nearly a city unto itself. And cities need trash cans. Lots of trash cans. And those cans need people to empty them. You work in Garbage Disposal, an elite team of garbage-movers who specialize in taking Voidmart's diverse non-fecal waste from small receptacles and putting it in bigger receptacles.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









in. prompt me the hell up and none of your bullshit

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
So, a lot of people have asked me to look at their stories recently, and a recurring problem I see is something called "Garden Pathing". I think I've talked about this in an earlier thread but that was literal years ago so I thought it might be useful here. Garden Pathing is when a sentence looks like it's going to do one thing, but then suddenly changes tack. This is jarring for the reader, and often knocks them right out of the story. An example:

The horse raced past the barn fell.

Did you get that sudden 'ohfuck' moment when your brain realised it wasn't reading the sentence it originally thought it was? You just got garden pathed. It's tied in with how the human brain processes text; we subconsciously try to use the words we've already read to predict the ones that are coming next. If those words aren't the ones we're expecting, we get a little shock that things haven't lined up properly.

She told me a little white lie will come back to haunt me.

In both of these examples, you can make the sentence much more clear by simply adding a few words.

The horse [which was] raced past the barn fell.
She told me [that] a little white lie will come back to haunt me.


Usually all it takes is a single preposition to fix, but you'd be amazed at how common this problem is, in the dome's writing and elsewhere. If you pay attention and learn to eliminate garden path sentences, you can make your writing much more clear with only a handful of extra words.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

sebmojo posted:

in. prompt me the hell up and none of your bullshit

um obviously you are in senpai department with rhino

Your character is a Shift Supervisor. Everything is terrible. Life is suffering. They're not even salaried. Holidays no longer exist. Why do they keep showing up day after day? Could they stop if they wanted to? No. Voidmart needs them. Voidmart loves them. Voidmart will never let them go.

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Enchanted Hat
Aug 18, 2013

Defeated in Diplomacy under suspicious circumstances
In, I need something to do while I'm ignoring Voidmart customers

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