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  • Locked thread
Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

Thranguy posted:

Mine was also selected. Let's get more interprompt reporting on this going on in-thread...

same

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flerp
Feb 25, 2014
yea mine was accepted 2

Some Strange Flea
Apr 9, 2010

AAA
Pillbug
ay yo toot toot :toot:

newtestleper
Oct 30, 2003
I wrote one as well, which was accepted. But nepotism so...

SkaAndScreenplays
Dec 11, 2013

by Pragmatica
Goodjudge...fast judge?

EDIT:
:siren:Exciting Offer Exclusive To Thunderdome!!!:siren:
Let's fill this quiet time with crits. He/She who crits the most stories between this post and judgepost gets either:
A) A New Avatar
or
B) A New Avatar for someone else they don't like

*And a free shirt from my old ska-band mailed to the address of your choosing!!!
*pending my ability to find them, this may be more of a punishment...

:toxx: to be paid out by 12/3/2016

SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Nov 15, 2016

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.




They didn't understand the brilliance that was my story. They don't deserve it! :P

The Cut of Your Jib
Apr 24, 2007


you don't find a style

a style finds you



Week 223 redemption submission

Time Just Got Away from Me
971 words



You know, my brother met his wife at his ten-year reunion. She turns her sandwich baggies inside out and rewashes them. Chris said my speech shouldn’t be a roast, but I did it anyway. They’re going to last.

Ash and Alex’s mail-order baby started kindergarten this year. We were all going to adopt and they actually went and did it. Their elementary integrates special needs kids into the regular classrooms. She seems to be adjusting well.

The cubicle farm is gone. They switched to this open floor plan. I’m the only one with a door now, and I have to keep it open all the time. Snyder has to go to the bathroom to pick his boogers now. If the point was making everyone irritable, they succeeded. You’d love it.

You remember when we were in the bowling alley, and Rich was at two ten on his way to a perfect game? It had been five years since we’d been together. Since we’d even seen each other. I traced your first hint of underboob with my finger and you slapped me on the cheek a little harder than playful.

Niko smelled like old stage make-up and Gatorade, but he had his Rocky Horror corset on and and nothing else. Dave was jamming on his guitar right there, eyes pinched shut, lost in his own moment. Led Zeppelin, as usual.

There was nothing personal. I’m still not sure who the show was for—maybe the lollipop guild out by the pool, sucking on Dave’s homemade edibles while they lounged in the courtyard and played up their faux-shock and outrage. Just when I start to forget, I find a fleck of gold glitter.

Dave didn’t even own curtains for the front window. Still doesn’t. Lives his life in the fishbowl. Showing off his guitar collection, I guess. Oh, you should see his dye job. His last floaty wisps the color of shoe polish. As far as I know, no one’s called him on it. Relishing every moment of his his mid-life crisis.

Five years since Rich called me ‘party in the back’ oh poo poo, you’re ‘party in the front, too.’ When we were stuffed in the back seat like the drunks we were. Flopped over my chest and kicking at the window along with the beat as we drove back through the suburbs.

We used to get soft serve at the Dairy Queen every Friday. I’d get a cone in a cup so it wouldn’t drip while we sat outside and watched the dumpies order deep fried everything. You’d get a Dilly Bar every time just because of the name. I pass it every day, but I haven’t gotten ice cream in a long time.

There was that time we both got holes-in-one on the eighteenth and won free games. It was the day we both swore not to cheat on the scorecards and see if karma worked. I caught you behind the windmill. I fudged that one, too. If you noticed you never said anything.

We set up those job interviews to get the nerves out before going for ones we wanted. You wound up getting offers some of them. I’ve seen the creepo from the bank in the park a few times. He always waves, but I pretend I’m on the phone.

You convinced me not to wear anything at all under my graduation robe. But then there were all those reports of people getting arrested for flashing and we chickened out. I think your Mom would have pretended nothing happened.

I still have the newspaper clipping from when we disassembled that modern art monstrosity on the quad and put it back together in the racquetball court. I was sweating bullets the entire next day, but the artist loved the stunt. She was up there taking pictures when they returned it to the lawn and the maintenance crew welded it to a steel plate so it would never move again. There was a confederate flag bumper sticker on the official school truck.

The other day I found the jumper with the cinnamon stain on it from the apple pie shots. We rode in the big drums of the industrial dryers while it was in the wash. That stain never came out. I considered just cutting it out with a perfectly circular hole, since that seemed like something you’d do, but I don’t think I could throw away the swatch of fabric.

How many nights did we sit up and read Chris his comp lit assignments to him like bedtime stories? He has full tenure now. I wonder if he tells the freshmen his syllabus is half books he didn’t exactly read himself.

I was in his dorm room when Chris said you were into me. You stretched in the hallway with Sara before her run, then just hung out, leaning against the door frame trying to be eighties cool. I already knew. Your sad attempt at playing coy charmed me.

I’m out on the front porch now as the sun is setting. It’s reflecting in the windows of that shithole rental across the street. A red stripe a shade lighter than the burning bushes we planted. Most of the leaves are gone now, though. It’s that time of year.

I wouldn’t blame you if you tore this up. I just thought you might like to see the house one more time. Play with the cats. I didn’t mean to waste so much of your time. It feels infinite until suddenly, it’s not.

You know the address. If you don’t make it, I’ll understand. But I’d like to see you for real, before I, you know, see you. I just put on the stained jumper, it’s getting chilly. I’m not going to cut holes in it. The house never seems to get warm anymore.

Sailor Viy
Aug 4, 2013

And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.

SkaAndScreenplays posted:

Goodjudge...fast judge?

EDIT:
:siren:Exciting Offer Exclusive To Thunderdome!!!:siren:
Let's fill this quiet time with crits. He/She who crits the most stories between this post and judgepost gets either:
A) A New Avatar
or
B) A New Avatar for someone else they don't like

*And a free shirt from my old ska-band mailed to the address of your choosing!!!
*pending my ability to find them, this may be more of a punishment...

:toxx: to be paid out by 12/3/2016

OK. Surely someone else can put in more crits than this.


Time Just Got Away from Me

I enjoyed this. You managed to evoke a feeling of nostalgia that I connected with. The terse style worked well, except when it was too terse and I couldn’t tell what was going on. That was worst in the paragraph that starts ‘Niko smelled like old stage make-up...’

I didn’t really ‘get’ the ending though. I went back over the story trying to figure out what it was ‘really’ about but I came up with nothing. You are probably overestimating how much your readers can read into your story (or I’m just dense.)

99 Songs Of Revolution

It’s hard to say much of anything about this, and that isn’t a good thing. I think if you are going to go for the super-short word count then you really need to have something with punch. This is just so vague that I feel like I’ve got nothing to hang onto. It would have been much better with more specificity. There are plenty of ways in a short epistolary story that you can imply things about the wider setting of the story—by making references to people, events, etc that aren’t explained in detail.
I don’t know what the title is a reference to and I’m not going to google it because a story should stand on its own.

Flying with the Turkeys

This is kind of nitpicky but I find it weird that he’s writing “hope you’re well” in what appears to be a diary entry, not a letter. And as I read on... yeah, it feels like the ‘epistolary’ part of the story is extremely tacked on to fit the prompt. If you just took out the headings and the few references to writing, then this would be a regular first-person narrative and would make a lot more sense.

The story arc of ‘descent into madness’ is pretty cliched but it was executed well at least. I liked how the narrator justified picking up the gun, for example. But I think there is a bit of a ceiling on how good this kind of story can be, because it always ends with just a bunch of weird poo poo happening, and it’s difficult to connect with as a reader.

The depiction of what I guess you would call ‘hillbilly life’ felt very stereotypical to me. Moonshine, guns, turkeys, jerky, etc. I live in Australia and don’t know anything about hillbillies other than what I’ve seen in TV and movies, but I got the impression that you were just drawing on the same sources that I would have. This is boring to me. When I read a story about someone very different to me, I want to get details that I didn’t know before, that make me look at them in a different and more human way.

My Old Friend Needs A Hand

Like ‘99 Songs of Revolution’, this story suffers from being too vague. At least you got pretty specific by the end of it, but I still felt like there wasn’t enough texture and detail to the story’s world. Like, there’s just a guy, he has all the generic attributes of a guy (job, wife, kids) and then there’s a generic button... I get that you were probably trying to make it feel universal but it just came off as lazy. At first I thought it was going to be some kind of metaphysical button like in that short story ‘Button, Button’. Then once you started getting specific I found it very hard to visualise. I don’t think that nuclear weapons actually have a literal button that fires them, and if they do then you need to sell it to me more.
In fact, there was a LOT in this story that just sounds too obviously made up. Does one random guy (a Captain at that) really have sole control over firing a bunch of nuclear warheads? Why wouldn’t someone try to stop him or at least question him a bit more forcefully? How does a Captain outrank an Admiral? Would an assistant really comply with a request to “go get me my gun so I can shoot myself”? And so on. Sometimes there can be a bit of leeway for a non-naturalistic style, but here it just feels like you couldn’t be bothered to think through the situation or do any research.
Then my next big question is... why will launching all these nukes bring an end to this vague “war” or “turmoil” that the narrator wants to stop? This is his suicide note, so there is plenty of room for him to go on a rant justifying his actions. But you gave us basically nothing.
The bit at the end where he says “tell my kids x... or tell them y, it’s up to you” was a little bit interesting. I would have liked to see this expanded upon to give the different perspectives on why he should or shouldn’t have pushed the button.

Protect the Future

“Character checking their mail” has to come close behind “Character wakes up in their bed” in the ranking of Most Boring Story Openings. By the time you get to the flash drive I’m more interested, but that first paragraph is a real snoozer.
The part where the letter is describing the alien planet feels very clunky and exposition-y to me. The epistolary format isn’t an excuse to drop huge chunks of worldbuilding on us, especially when you are just using the same generic narrator voice that you would if you were describing this planet in the third person. If you’re not going to invest the narrator’s voice with any unique qualities then what’s the point of it being told through a letter at all?
And then it just ends with no resolution. Were you trying to imply that Charlie would maybe throw away or destroy the flash drive without looking at it? Because that could have been interesting but would need to be developed more.
As it stands, you could delete all the ‘Charlie’ sections of the story and not really lose any information, since all of Charlie’s reactions can be inferred from the text of the letter. Which is a shame because the structure of using both the letter and a third-person frame narrative is not a bad idea (though perhaps a bit unwieldy with such a low word count.)

Sailor Viy fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Nov 15, 2016

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart
I don't care that the next prompt isn't up yet. Preemptively in, whatever it may be.

BeefSupreme
Sep 14, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022
Here's a prompt: I challenge you to a Beef-off

Fleta Mcgurn
Oct 5, 2003

Porpoise noise continues.

BeefSupreme posted:

Here's a prompt: I challenge you to a Beef-off

Beef Stroganoff

Boaz-Jachim
Sep 20, 2015

CANERE CORAM LEONE
Week #223 Crits: Hate Mail

Fleta McGurn: Peanut Milk
This isn't so much a story as a reflection, and I felt the strain of trying to wrap it into an epistolary format. I figured it wasn't something he was actually going to send to her based on the way he was being descriptive--much more like he's recalling memories than like he's trying to remind someone of a shared experience. Not a whole lot happens here, and mumblecore can be nice but it doesn't grab me and the prose is good but nothing super exciting.

Rating: A bottle of purple-cap peanut milk: not fancy, but at least you won't have to milk the Planters peanut again.


N. Senada: I love you I'm sorry
I feel like there's going to be a lot of this in these stories. I know an emotional event happened just recently and people are processing it through fiction but I'm kind of fatigued about this right now. So, just going by the story itself, the transition from texts from Rachel to email to Rachel wasn't clear enough to me, so I wasn't sure if I was reading something else she'd written or what. Also this isn't much of a story either, it's more of a build-up to a revelation at the end. Which isn't bad, it's just not that present or compelling. But I bet I'm going to get a lot of that this week too.

Rating: Cafeteria pizza that you eat because it's pizza, even if it's made of cardboard and processed cheese foods.

Boaz-Jachim: Remember, I will always be your Hunter in the night Sky
At least this one was short. The repeated structure on and off is kind of hokey, and while it works for the first refrain it doesn't really land for most of the others. I didn't get a clear sense of the world, or what spirit-sickness was, which fucks with the pacing since it all happens near the end. The setting is hard to pin down too, and it feels more like this was weird for the sake of being artsy and weird than actually meaningful.

If you asked me, I think the author of this story wrote it mainly to avoid getting toxx banned.

Rating: A plate of Buffalo Wild Wings. Tingles as it goes down, but shoots through you in minutes.

Okua: To a Seaside Wall
Epistolary formats seem tricky to write a whole story in, since the character has to either have already reached their conclusion (and thus it's foregone) or haven't yet reached it and thus it's not an ending. The whole island-science thing feels like it's infantilizing her a little, which probably wasn't your intention, but it does make her seem younger than she's probably meant to be. Then again, she is sending letters to someone who's dead, so maybe she's just more whimsical. I did like this, though I wished there was more of a clear resolution to it one way or another.

Rating: A crisply folded sand dollar to take to the river bank.

Baleful Osmium Sea: Bottled Immortality
I'm not sure whether or not to take this seriously, because on one hand, your characters are Elwyn Alphonse and Nathaniel Bottomsly, but on the other hand, nothing particularly amusing happens, beyond standard foppishness. I kept waiting for some turn to come, but there wasn't a point where something happened that was that unexpected. He knows a poet, the poet is into alchemy. The poet doesn't like fame. He invents a device to make him immortal, and gives his last poem to his friend, who throws it into the sea. No real struggle or arc there, which is a shame, because I could tell you put work into the elaborate prose.

Rating: A tea doily that doesn't do anything but is very nice to look at.

a new study bible!: Comfort and Security
Hey, this was good and it was a story. Good job. It started off with a sentimental tone that wasn't quite working for me, but it builds (after a wait that did feel kind of long) to a great paranoid weirdness. It's not horror and it's not unreal, it's just gently unsettling in a pretty satisfying way, and the contrast between his tone and what he's saying and the fact that this is supposed to be his cover letter all works for me.

Rating: A trip to Disneyland when all you expected was Universal Studios.

Hammer Bro.: Nigh
The little-kid voice grated on me, but I thought the joke at the end was amusing enough. It's good that it was short, because joke stories that run on too long are always really rough to listen to. I think that the next-to-last paragraph is a little on-the-nose, but I don't know. Maybe other people wouldn't have picked it up without bopping them over the head with the whole satan thing.

Rating: Krampus doesn't put coal in your stocking or cut off your head or whatever it is he's supposed to do. I'm not from Norwegia, I don't know.

Thanguy: Lean That Way Forever
Back to things that are questionably stories, but definitely an interesting world and a compelling perspective. Read the whole thing all the way through, and while the lich thing leaves me scratching my head just a bit I thought it was an overall enjoyable read. Here, the voice of being written as a letter managed to keep the expository worldbuilding from becoming too much of an infodump.

Rating: Words words words.

Jay W. Friks: Deadline Imminent-Please Open Immediately
While I don't agree with your protagonist on a lot of things, I did find the introduction compelling enough to keep reading through it and he does feel sincere in his own beliefs. I was expecting something a bit more self-aggrandizing to be the explanation, but actually the fact that he just owns up to it was enough of a play on my expectations that it worked for me.

Rating: A Pontiac sedan with four-wheel drive.

SkaAndScreenplays: 99 Songs of Revolution
I'm not sure if this is meant to be a joke or not because if I believe the flash rule, I'm left assuming that he's going to go out, drink ten gallons of rice milk, and pull out his car's headlights. If I don't, then it's barely anything with an arc at all. At least N. Senada's had a structure to it and characters and stuff.

Rating: Just a normal jug of milk. Why is everyone getting weird with milk this week? Just milk out of a cow's big pink milk nipples.

Tyrannosaurus: To Open On The Day You Graduate Highschool
This was pretty sweet, and I don't have a lot more to say about it. Again, the potential story-ness is lessened by the fact that it's all epistolary, which is fine, but the ending seems odd to me. It provides context but doesn't really wrap things up in any way. It's where the story stops but it doesn't feel like that's where it ends, you know?

Rating: The happiest most huggable IED in the world.

Kaishai: Discovery
Cool, one of what, three actual stories this week? It reminds me most of the cosmic lich one, what with the strange metahuman stuff going on, but this is a lot more personal, the Gone Home to that one's Jupiter Ascending. It was pleasant, and interesting, and I don't have a whole lot more I can dig out of it. Like I said a lot earlier on, the epistolary format makes it very hard to end strong, I think, because things have either been concluded for a while or are still ongoing, and this one falls into the latter category. There's more to hear, but the story stopped there.

Rating: Gneiss.

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart

BeefSupreme posted:

Here's a prompt: I challenge you to a Beef-off

Bring it. Who shall judge the BeefBQ?

BeefSupreme
Sep 14, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Fleta Mcgurn posted:

Beef Stroganoff


Erogenous Beef posted:

Bring it. Who shall judge the BeefBQ?


Seems we've got a Beef Sloganoff

Okay serious business here are some crits

Peanut Milk

I like this story, even though it seems fairly inconsequential. There is no real conflict--neither in the present, with him reckoning with this suddenly dredged up memory, or in the past, with his not-quite relationship with Peanut Girl. In the end, he discards her memory pretty flippantly. I think you do a fairly good job of characterization here of Rui (I think that's your protagonist?), particularly in his social nervousness, both with these douchey coworkers and with the girl. Also, is he talking to the milk carton?

The most interesting idea here is the bit you get to with the theme park, and the idea of revisiting old memories, now diminished or even tarnished by the revisiting. Not only that, but like the theme park the interest in future interactions is diminished as well. Those are ideas worth exploring, and I do think this format works well for that.

Don't like the way you've combined these sentences: "You’re probably not that successful, although I am happy to see that you’re gracing the good brand of peanut milk, but you’re almost definitely more successful than me." Consecutive subordinate clauses is weird here. This might be a run-on?

Subject: I love you I’m sorry

I get the idea of your story, but there are some really confusing bits. This could have used another pass to look at some conflicting details. For example, in the last graf, your protag says they are going home to talk to their parents about who they're working with, but then they say they don't know if they can tell their parents about Rachel. A couple grafs before that, the protag says that their dad said "something like", then says they can remember it really well. Which is it?

Also, not giving us any details about your character here makes it hard to identify with him/her.

I don't love the text message device at the start of the story. I don't know that it adds anything except that maybe this person is a total dick, bailing on a girl they say they love without even texting back. I don't think that's what you're going for here, so I might drop it or reframe it.

The incident you describe with Adam is cartoonishly racist, as are your character's parents. I think this would benefit from some more subtlety in that department. Overall, I would say this story fails to make me empathize with the plight of this character, and a lack of realistic details or decision making is part of that.

Deadline Imminent-Please Open Immediately

You've got the seed of an interesting idea here, but the execution left me severely wanting. The details are too extreme across the board. 20 million dollars? Where did he get all that money? Especially since the implication is he's a fairly low level worker.

I don't really know why he kills himself now, as opposed to closer to the manslaughter in question. It's plausible, but you don't give any real reason why he stuck around and just now decided it was time to go.

An autistic man seeking a management position to develop his own social awareness is interesting. Some of the things you're doing format-wise and pacing wise are interesting, in light of his autism. I don't know if an autistic person would call out where his storytelling-style diverges from the norm, however. I also didn't understand why he was so distraught after he successfully carpooled everyone home.

I don't really know why the little girl had to die in this story, other than to drive the plot.

99 Songs Of Revolution

Nice streetlight reference

I'm assuming this is in response to election results? There's not a ton to say here, because it's so short. It's not tremendously original, but originality is overrated. I think the biggest problem I have is a lack of clarity on why this letter is necessary--that is, why does Murphy have to leave? I understand the motivation, but why can't Murphy bring his love along? What danger is there? Are we talking literal wars to come?

Basically, I could have used 100 more words. I don't know if there is a lot beyond that, though.

Chili
Jan 23, 2004

college kids ain't shit


Fun Shoe

Erogenous Beef posted:

Bring it. Who shall judge the BeefBQ?

BeefSupreme posted:

Seems we've got a Beef Sloganoff

I gotchu fellas. Here's what I need:

You have up to 2,000 words and until 11/22 10:00PM EDT to write me a story.

In this story, your protagonist must be a vegan. They don't necessarily have to be a bitching and moaning vegan, they can be a super chill vegan, but a vegan they must be. That lifestyle choice must be important to your story.

Toxx it up, and may the best beef be passed on, because meat is murder.

Boaz-Jachim
Sep 20, 2015

CANERE CORAM LEONE
Week #223 Crits: For the Widows in Thunderdome, for the DQs in Ypsilanti

Hawklad: Flying with the Turkeys
I had a sense that you were going for some kind of horror fairly early on since you dropped clues about something being wrong. I wasn't sure if it was going to be mundane or not, and even now I'm not sure if he's drunk and crazy or if there really are strange things happening. Considering that this DQed, I'm willing to assume that maybe you didn't have time to write the ending you were planning to, or something. Regardless, it feels like the story builds and builds and then flies off at the end to vanish into the distance without really giving any closure. The reveal that she's dead near the end is a bit of a twist, but since it's not actually that relevant to the plot that doesn't bother me. This doesn't really read like someone who's writing, though. It sounds like a transcript of speech. There's a bit too many colloquialisms for writing--even for a stilling hillbilly.

Rating: There's a reason why the rare ould mountain dew is rare.

widespread: My Old Friend Needs A Hand
The ambiguousness of this in the beginning bothered me, because it felt like it was going to stay abstract--which I wouldn't have liked, I'm glad it ended up concrete--but there's no real reason to hide what he's doing. I really like the image of a nuclear launch operator who treats the launch button like a friend, but you disconnected the idea of anthropomorphizing the button in the first paragraph from the point when you say what it is near the end. The point of view of a depressed launch operator is a good idea, but the part where you would have been able to explore that, I was still trying to figure out what button he was pressing.

Rating: The squad of dolphins that guards the USA's nuclear arsenal.

BeefSupreme: Protect the Future
So the future thing was tricky for me to pick up on, since there's so many things that are grounded in modern-day reality. Being grounded isn't a bad thing, but I was imagining a very normal suburban setting until suddenly it's in the future and we're meeting aliens. A little something to insinuate that this isn't the real world would have helped prepare me for the sudden Avatar-ness. Aside from that, the trouble with focusing so much on Charlie is that he doesn't really do anything. This is formatted more like a traditional story than others this week, but at the same time, Charlie just reads a letter and looks at a flash drive--he makes a choice, yeah, but that's pretty much the last line and then it ends.

Rating: A used VHS of Starship Troopers.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









judgment has been rendered, here's a toxx to do crits within 48 hours

flerp
Feb 25, 2014
Reverse order crits so people who got skipped can get something at least

Kaishai

This feels awkward as a letter -- its somewhere in between actual prose and a person really writing a letter. Id like for it to go one way or the other, the voice seems to be going back and forth.

How do you italics in a letter? I mean this is prob a email so idk what im even saying

Ok, see things like

quote:

Thin rocks rose up out of the dirt. Only they were fingers, not rocks,

Doesnt work in a letter because why did she say they were thin rocks? She knows they were fingers, so she would prob say something like “I thought they were thin rocks, but they were these hosed up fingers.” or at least, i feel like that’s how someone would say it. The whole description of the man coming out its just… idk, it has that same problem of feeling like an attempt at being prose while also still trying to be a letter.

Yeah, like the dialogue doesnt make sense and lines like

quote:

My voice had that strangled-frog croak Angelea used to laugh at and spook me to hear again.

makes sense in prose but in a letter… why is she talking about this detail when she’s talking about A LITERAL ZOMBIE TALKING TO HER. It doesnt make sense.

Why didnt the girl just get the gently caress out of there like for real. A loving zombie showed up and shes like nah ill stay in this house wtf.

Why is she telling this guy what happened?

There’s some like kinda cool emotions here but like… the plot doesnt make a whole lot of sense. The story relied on your narrator believing a zombie monster thing and i dont really get why she does? The plot just needed the narrator to do it soooo she did.

The letter format is p tacked on and this story is aching to be in an actual prose format then forced into a letter, i feel like.

Trex

This was an easy read but a little… insubstantial. It doesn’t really have a lot of motion in it or move anything past what it is. Soldier helps a baby out, writes a letter to it, says “don’t give up” but it’s not really anything more then that, huh? That’s a horrible thing, and I liked this for what it is, but I felt like there could’ve been more. I liked the character here a bit, he has a good voice, but I don’t feel like I learn much about the soldier or the girl or anything. Not a whole lot of development I guess.

Ska

Aka vague bullshit the story

if youre doing something this short you need, you NEED, to be specific. This is meaningless because i dont know what youre talking about. “This war to come” -- dont explain what the war is. “Action” -- you dont say what action youre going to take. Who cares? Who is the girl he’s writing to? What’s any of this? I don’t see why I care and the vagueness doesnt give me anything else.

Jay W. Friks

This is real odd. Idk what it is but there’s jsut like weird statements that feel like… so bland for what they’re saying (I ran over your daughter like mannnn that should be so much stronger).

Huh autism… that kinda helps this story but it still feels odd in a dissatisfying way.

Still a dude talking about how he’s socially awkward is a bit too self indulgent for a letter written to the father of the daughter he’s killed. Like, cmon now.

Uhhh huh. This was uhhh rough. I didnt like the parts where it was like the guy being like “im sad because im a socially awkward dude” because like… youre writing a letter to the father of the daughter you killed, but idk, there’s like some realness in this that hits… i guess the best way to put it is it hits me in an odd way that i dont know how i feel about this. I feel like it’s not great but there’s something here that genuinely makes me feel like hurt and there’s some rough poo poo in here. Idk what to say about this honestly.

Thranguy

Dialogue always feels weird to exist in a letter, you know? It makes sense as prose but in a letter, it just looks like something you wouldnt write that way. Youd just be like “yeah this dude said this” instead of an actual dialogue exchange.

Also you both just slowly nodded in the dialogue… wait why are you saying you slowly nodded in a letter?

Phew thats a lot of dialogue in a letter aint it.

Oh so this is like gods i guess. Ok i c

I guess i dont rly get this… its a lot of dialogue but like not with a good amount of context for me to understand like whats rly going on. Like ok i think its gods that are also liches and then the boss dad is coming back and hes gonna enslave ‘em and then there’s humans but the humans dont ever die for some reason but then there’s some dialogue between the gods andddddddddddddddd i think you needed to kind of run with one of those ideas instead of scattering them about because i dont rly know what youre trying to say.

Hammer Bro.

I really hate this kid voice its the most generic kid voice in existence.

Yeah this kid voice is super obnoxious because its so clearly just the kid misinterpreting things but not in an interesting or clever way just an obnoxious way that it makes me have to work as a reader for no real reason.

Oh its satan. That’s lame. This story is lame now. Why is Satan defending this little girl? What’s the point of this? Her parents die but then everyone else in the neighbor dies or maybe its the rapture or………. I dont get this. I dont get why it needs to be Satan. I don’t get why there needs to be a Cerberus (that’s Greek/Roman too they don’t have Cerberus in Judeo-Christian mythology I don’t think) so uhhhhh yeah this was very stupid! And not good either imo.

a new study bible!

i dont think i can ever accept dialogue in a letter now it just always makes me feel weird

this guy seems uhhhhhhhh not v right in the head u know what i mean

ok this is like kinda silly w/ some seriousness to it that's fun. i like the little like revelations you have in here, w/ us realizing he's going through Disneyland all the time so he can find his brother again after all these years. yeah idk i had a good time reading this, but the pacing is a little off and it feels like there's pockets of prose splattered in w/ some letter poo poo. it's alright tho.

sparksbloom
Apr 30, 2006
:siren: Letter Week Judgement :siren:

Congratulations to everyone who was able to finish and submit a story during a very difficult week. For the record, I enjoyed most of them, even if my cojudges talked me down from more HMs. I’m proud of each and every one of you. Here are the folks I’m least proud of:

DMs

Jay W. Friks, your story wasn’t egregiously bad, but the meandering narration didn’t help a story that didn’t have a lot of engaging elements. Also, don’t edit your story after hitting “submit,” that’s what the preview is for. For that I’ve got to hand out a dual DQ/DM.

SkaAndScreenplays, there just wasn’t very much effort put into this story, and that nearly net you the loss. I appreciated that this didn’t go on long enough to bore me, though.

BeefSupreme, I asked for an epistolary story, not a story with a letter in it. Even if your story was amazing -- which it wasn’t -- you would have DMed for not following the prompt.

Which brings us to our loser. widespread, this wasn’t terrible, but it was boring, generic sci-fi in a week where most stories has compelling voices. Please keep trying!

This week’s sole HM goes to a new study bible! Two out of three judges really enjoyed the voice of the protagonist, and I especially appreciated the depth of the actual story in this one.

And our winner is Boaz-Jachim! All three of us thought this was a gorgeously written story that hit the right emotional notes. The throne is yours.

SkaAndScreenplays
Dec 11, 2013

by Pragmatica

SkaAndScreenplays posted:

Goodjudge...fast judge?

EDIT:
:siren:Exciting Offer Exclusive To Thunderdome!!!:siren:
Let's fill this quiet time with crits. He/She who crits the most stories between this post and judgepost gets either:
A) A New Avatar
or
B) A New Avatar for someone else they don't like

*And a free shirt from my old ska-band mailed to the address of your choosing!!!
*pending my ability to find them, this may be more of a punishment...

:toxx: to be paid out by 12/3/2016

Grats to Boaz-Jachim for the Win & A New Study Bible for the HM

Boaz also cranked out 15 crits in the downtime before judgement so what do you want to replace your stupid-newbie Avatar? Find me in IRC since I don't have Platinum so I don't have PMs.
Also I'm serious about that shirt thing so get me a size and I'll accommodate to the best of my ability.

PROMPT!

widespread
Aug 5, 2013

I believe I am now no longer in the presence of nice people.


sparksbloom posted:

Which brings us to our loser. widespread, this wasn’t terrible, but it was boring, generic sci-fi in a week where most stories has compelling voices. Please keep trying!

Tis better to lose for being boring than to lose for being a terrible writer. Thank you for the crits as well, those who gave me crits.

Boaz-Jachim
Sep 20, 2015

CANERE CORAM LEONE
Thunderdome CCXXIV: I Wanna Dome You Like An Animal



This week, you're going to write stories about beasts, whether mythological or mundane. When you sign up, you may choose a beast to write about, or have me choose one for you. If you don't say anything, I'm going to assume you want me to choose for you. If you choose some bullshit that's basically a human like a vampire or an elf, I'm going to give you a better beast. The beast doesn't have to be your protagonist, but must at least be an important character.

Everyone will get a flash rule to help inspire them.

Genre is wide open: realism, historical, fantasy, fable, sci-fi, poetry, whatever.

Word count is 1100 words.

Signups close at 11 PM Pacific on Friday.
Submissions close at 11 PM Pacific on Sunday.

:siren: I KNOW READING IS HARD FOR DOMERS BUT NOTE THAT IT'S NOT MIDNIGHT :siren:

Judge:
Boaz-Jachim
Thranguy

Entrants:
Erogenous Beef (Centaur)
SkaAndScreenplays (Manticore)
widespread (Minotaur)
The Cut of Your Jib (Falcon) :toxx:
Chairchucker (Sphinx)
Third Emperor (Cockroaches)
Fleta Mcgurn (Horse)
N. Senada (Kobold)
sparksbloom (Coyote)
BeefSupreme (Dog)
Baleful Osmium Sea (Gargoyle)
Guiness13 (Chimera)
Chili (Tiger)
Electric Owl (Sasquatch)
Sailor Viy (Bison)
Jay W. Friks (A Bao A Qu)
flerp (Platypus)
Entenzahn (Dragon)
Beige (Bear)
Hugoon Chavez (Erinyes)
Fuubi (Tyrannosaurus rex)
Chainmail Onesie (Zebra)
a new study bible! (Pigs)
llamagucci (Black Shuck)
Farchanter (Donkey)
Club Sandwich (Smilodon)
Ironic Twist (Raijū)

Boaz-Jachim fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Nov 18, 2016

SkaAndScreenplays
Dec 11, 2013

by Pragmatica
IN:
With a Manticore

SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Nov 16, 2016

widespread
Aug 5, 2013

I believe I am now no longer in the presence of nice people.


Lemme tell you about my favorite beast, the mINotaur.

And yes, I'm choosing that beast.

The Cut of Your Jib
Apr 24, 2007


you don't find a style

a style finds you



In: flash and beast me

:toxx: for blowing the last deadline

Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




Yeah OK

ThirdEmperor
Aug 7, 2013

BEHOLD MY GLORY

AND THEN

BRAWL ME
In with cockroaches.

Fleta Mcgurn
Oct 5, 2003

Porpoise noise continues.
In, please inspire me.

Boaz-Jachim
Sep 20, 2015

CANERE CORAM LEONE

SkaAndScreenplays posted:

IN:
With a Manticore
Flash rule: Takes pride in its sharpshooting ability.


widespread posted:

Lemme tell you about my favorite beast, the mINotaur.

And yes, I'm choosing that beast.
Flash rule: The minotaur wants to be a sculptor.

The Cut of Your Jib posted:

In: flash and beast me

:toxx: for blowing the last deadline
Falcon. Flash rule: Trouble on a scouting mission.

Sphinx. Flash rule: Would love to be doing anything other than guarding this tomb.

ThirdEmperor posted:

In with cockroaches.
Flash rule: "I love you, but I have a secret...I'm cockroaches."

Fleta Mcgurn posted:

In, please inspire me.
Horse. Flash rule: Heroic horse, cowardly rider.

Boaz-Jachim fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Nov 16, 2016

N. Senada
May 17, 2011

My kidneys are busted
In, requesting beast and flash rule.

sparksbloom
Apr 30, 2006
In. And don't miss:

Erogenous Beef posted:

I don't care that the next prompt isn't up yet. Preemptively in, whatever it may be.

BeefSupreme
Sep 14, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022
In

Baleful Osmium Sea
Nov 1, 2016
In

Guiness13
Feb 17, 2007

The best angel of all.
In. Beast me

Chili
Jan 23, 2004

college kids ain't shit


Fun Shoe
In. Throw a tiger my way, please and thank you.

almost there
Sep 13, 2016

IN w/ a Sasquatch

Boaz-Jachim
Sep 20, 2015

CANERE CORAM LEONE

N. Senada posted:

In, requesting beast and flash rule.
Kobold. Flash rule: Gets into trouble trying to prove itself.

sparksbloom posted:

In. And don't miss:
Coyote. Flash rule: Struggles to be trusted.

Erogenous Beef posted:

I don't care that the next prompt isn't up yet. Preemptively in, whatever it may be.
Centaur. Flash rule: A power struggle.

Dog. Flash rule: There's a mystery afoot.

Gargoyle. Flash rule: Trying to attract new residents.

Guiness13 posted:

In. Beast me
Since Ska changed his mind:
Chimera. Flash rule: Its heads disagree over a small matter.

Chili posted:

In. Throw a tiger my way, please and thank you.
Flash rule: The hunter doesn't know what he's really hunting.

Electric Owl posted:

IN w/ a Sasquatch
Flash rule: Addicted to human hair care products.

Sailor Viy
Aug 4, 2013

And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.

In with a Bison.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer
In with an A Bao A Qu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81_Bao_A_Qu

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flerp
Feb 25, 2014
im in with a platypus :toxx:

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