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Edit - I'm a dummy and used the wrong prompt loving everything up. Oops. Mekchu fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 14:05
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Unfunny Poster posted:Edit - I'm a dummy and used the wrong prompt loving everything up. The good news is that you picked the right week to do it!
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Apr 2, 2018 15:28
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Tanz! posted:Interprompt: Ideas Guy In a world where babies are killed by the millions, only one man can set things right, he is... The Impregnator
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Apr 2, 2018 16:04
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Tanz! posted:Interprompt: Ideas Guy A recovering pornstar's hands gain their own will and attempt to choke his penis at inopportune times.
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Apr 2, 2018 16:36
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https://soundcloud.com/andre-bourlin/ggmr2/s-fbozp I did a reading of g=Gm/r2 by SurreptitiousMuffin, a beautifully told story of space and calamity.
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Apr 3, 2018 03:18
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no
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Apr 3, 2018 03:27
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Interprompt critsRandomPauI posted:Interprompt Less bad and more mediocre. I could see this being produced. 6/10 try less hard. curlingiron posted:okay, i got twoo words for you Probably already exists, but pretty awful. 4/10 you could do a LOT worse. Solitair posted:Interprompt jfc I'm out the room already 2/10 just shy of the worst possible things I could imagine bj Flesnolk posted:Interprompt I'd watch it 10/10 you're bad at being bad Yoruichi posted:“So the story is about a woman named Rose, and she falls in love with a warrior and then they kiss and stuff,” said Mosebjo, mouth full of barbecued frog. I feel like there's an injoke I'm missing so that's pretty bad - not a bad story persay but the pitch is awful. 4/10 would not call back Fuschia tude posted:In a world where babies are killed by the millions, only one man can set things right, he is... The Impregnator whats with all these porn based ones, 3/10 but could probably a character in the live action anime adaptation of fetish-based superheros Jay W. Friks posted:A recovering pornstar's hands gain their own will and attempt to choke his penis at inopportune times. no seriously whats with all these porn based ones is tdome just using 'awful pitch' as an excuse to insert their feti- oh OH this competition is over I'm taking a shower
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Apr 3, 2018 03:48
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This week on Thunderdome: in this very special episode, Tanz! learns why we’re all specifically forbidden from writing erotica.
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Apr 3, 2018 03:54
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Tanz! posted:persay 
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Apr 3, 2018 04:31
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 Week CLXXVIV RESULTS: It is us, we are the fools of April, because it's April and we're all the worst.  What a garbage week. You all failed me in different ways, and for that, I salute you. That said, some of you are worse than others, and some of you were just too competent to make the cut. Those of you didn't fail me enough: your inability to suck has been noted. The HMs go to Captain_Person's Jerry Kewl Adventures 1: A New Best Friend, which was just midgrade YA with too many adverbs, to Yoruichi's That Time You Went on a Cat Search and Stole a Helicopter which had a frenetic beat-poetry energy to it, and to Armack's []bUntitled[b/], which despite a boatload of malapropisms and poor spelling couldn't hide a genuinely joyful nonsense poem about a dog who really wants to eat a cauliflower. The winner this week wrote a story that was ridiculous but also really kickin' rad in a Heavy Metal kinda way. It had bears riding people around while fighting sharks on top of other sharks. We had a ton of fun with it. Chainmail Onesie, you are too good for this evil place and you get the losertar this week. Our DMs were SH's ~*~The Persistence of Narrative Within the Conceit~*~ about a furry who gets butt pregnant but it's not sexual u guys; Antivehicular's Horse Dreams: Paint Your Dreams, which did exactly what it said on the tin; Sham Bam Bamina's! The Truth is Far, Far Out There, which was the perfect pastiche of stupid person's idea of smart writing; and Solitair's Ready Prayer One which basically got a DM on the strength of that title alone. The loser was a piece of Ayn Rand fanfic of a ponderous length that would make Ayn Rand proud. A piece where characters kept randomly burping in a way that was extremely horny on main. A piece that took a random total left turn into lovely creepypasta because one bad genre just wasn't enough. Hats off to Tanz! with my first story ^U^ . You really shat the bed: the throne is yours. EDIT: a small clarification about archiving. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2018 06:12
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If anybody is curious, you were all graded on a scale from 1-69 but since nobody got a perfect 69 none of you get to say 'nice' without feeling like an imposter and a coward. quote:my first story ^U^ 3
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Apr 3, 2018 06:12
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Nice use of words there, writer
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Apr 3, 2018 06:15
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 Ok so according to muffin HIGH means actually well-written and LOW means badly-written so it’s backwards forwards day. I dunno if you get LOW you should be proud of knowing how to craft a bad story, but if you get HIGH you should also be proud that despite the circumstances you managed to write a good story. Why am I so confused? 1 Chili Inchworm It starts off as a poem which I didn’t really care about, then it got into those two big chunks of huge paragraphs with words which I don’t really understand but I dug those a lot. It’s a very self-important stream of consciousness thing where you can feel the ebb and flow of the author’s feelings as they get more excited and then upset at the end, which reminds me of how a person gets super excited and chatter about a topic they are very invested in and then slowly become embarrassed and angry when their excitement is met with disinterest. Mid-High 2 crabrock A Horse Called Bob On a macro level this story is super bad, involving a metal brony who has to fight a dr robotnik who built him with love but also wants him to do evil. Definitely feels like a kid who watched a lot of cartoons and anime and struggle to put it in words. This is also the beginning of those stories that uses formatting errors like the paragraph ending mid-sentence. The only thing that stops this story from being THAT BAD is there’s a real flow of action which is a big no no when you write bad stuff on fanfiction.net Mid-Low 3 Armack []bUntitled[/b] Ahhhh my god I really like the rhyming structure of this story. It actually takes some (horrifying) skills to do this well at it AND writing a hilariously dumb story about a (bad) dog on a (good) dog trying to eat a cauliflower. The problem is it’s not bad bad per se but rather absurdist. I really enjoyed this story which makes it High which is a problem! 4 Sitting Here ~*~The Persistence of Narrative Within the Conceit~*~ gently caress this is the good stuff why isn’t there more. I laughed out loud at almost all the super pathetic lines like how his birthplace is his mom, and his height is something only pathetic fools that amuse him make fun of. Also that he’s 230 pounds but “mostly muscle” lmao. Then I got sad that he has a terrible childhood, with a (most likely) negligent mother and a dad who’s definitely in at least 3 MGTOW facebook groups now. But then he turns into a furry who likes non-sexual butt pregnancy??? That sends it straight to Low which is good! ANd bad! I’m so confused how does this grading structure work 5 Exmond Thunderdome is Eternal Wow ok I loving hate this because of all the overt thunderdome references. Which means it should be Low, but I got bored halfway through. Which is bad! I’m thinking that the grading should be “yeah this is bad, but ALSO: it has to be interesting enough that I don’t start thinking about watching Youtube videos while reading your piece”. Which is what happened! I watched some people eat food and complain about gold in their pizza. So perhaps the use of the references was lazy bad-writing and it didn’t hold up the badness of the piece. So I’ll say it’s Mid-Low 6 Captain_Person Jerry Kewl Adventures 1: A New Best Friend I didn’t hate this story. Which may be bad? God drat it muffin why did you do this. OK. So I know exactly what you are doing - the ending is ridiculously optimistic and too “and everybody stood up and clapped, and Jerry Kewl was Albert Einstein”, but I got invested with the story of the kid as an underdog and having a magic sketch pal. The ending really sells how bad the actual thing is, and this is the first story that does those horrible wattpad/literotica way of “Part 1 of ???” thing, so it’s Mid-High 7 Antivehicular Horse Destiny: Paint Your Dreams Haha gently caress I hate this story. Which is good! And bad! I’m goign to just keep repeating this until someone realises that this is me doing bad critting. Or until I realise I’m the one doing? Who knows? What do you know? Let’s find out! And that leaves a non-obscure Netflix reference that also ties in with the fact that your story is about a horse! Except it’s a horse princess that this really creepy rear end in a top hat wants to gently caress in his dream and it makes me cringe all over. It also reminds me of that horrible Piers Anthony book, which makes it even worse! Prose-wise this isn’t bad but the macro level is so bad, and I wanted to die when he kissed the girl and problematically thought “oh well i guess i can love other girls before i love you first” ahaGHGHGHHH Low 8 Yoruichi That Time You Went on a Cat Search and Stole a Helicopter I like the fact the whole story is one paragraph, very 13 year old deviantart profile: Writer (but I’ll be famous at 17 like the eragon guy!) I like that the cat has a Japanese name and apparently translates to Nyan-ko, which is weeaboo as gently caress. I like that the titular helicopter only appears at the end like an anticlimax, which is very much how bad trailers work in Hollywood. The language is however kinda flowery and nice? Which is bad? Also I watched one youtube video while reading (it was about a guy eating Matcha noodles in Kyoto) So it’s Mid-Low. 9 cptn_dr How My New Life Began Ah I love how this has all the trappings of the bad YA fiction, right down to segregating people for insipid reasons. And eye colour has to be the most insipid reason, which just fits in so well with all the self-important and self-unique qualities of the protagonist. “One of my biggest flaws is my curiosity” just smacks so hard of someone filling up a character sheet and deciding what their flaw is, it’s gerat. I also have to appreciate ““We can’t just stand aside and do NOTHING!” I nearly yelled, my violet eyes flashing behind their contact lenses, gleaming bluely.” I laughed at “Science Gladiators” and the huge monologue given by the dead love interest, and then the sudden appearance of a sister. So Low, it’s great! It’s bad? It’s great! 10 Unfunny Poster The Rise of Comrade Colonel Meow Yeah, this definitely reeks of someone who watched too many written Let’s Play of wargames and decided to make them furry, but not too much in case it becomes really furry. It’s good bad writing but I watched three youtube videos while reading this. They were 1. Good community fish in a betta fish tank; 2. What if Wes Anderson directed X-Men; and 3. Rejected Theme Song for Ready Player One. So it’s Mid-Low 11 sparksbloom Touch the cactus, she said I really appreciate how the key way to write bad writing is to avoid it, by deliberately putting a scene break whenever action is supposed to happen. Also how the main character is actually the side character who dies for SOME REASON. I also enjoy the VeRY rAnDOM thing of how she likes beans, just like Cartman likes cheese puff! I still recall there was some writing tip of “good characters” where they suggest a quirk and Cartman’s cheese puff addiction was consider “good”. I used to read bad writing tips all the time. So anyway this is Low for me, that garbage poem really did it for me. 12 Chainmail Onesie Bearly a Story Oh no, it’s one of those absurdist stories that turned out to be well-written! God drat it! The no bone bear on a shark is ridiculous and there’s action! And it’s kinda entertaining but sometimes a little boring when they talk, which is bad/good??? Ugh! Why do I keep getting into this problem? High I’m sorry 13 Tanz! my first story ^U^ holy poo poo It dragged a little in a couple of the early chapters but overall it made me laugh a lot. The TL/author notes remind me of the oh-so-many stories I read just after House of Leaves was published, so so so bad I just love those. The way anime ayn rand uses capitalism to destroy communism is a little too on the nose in its badness, because they are actually well-written, and her attacking the three quests are a little too clever to be bad, but the whole thing kept me very entertained especially for something at this length. There are too many choice sentences and I like that the ending fight is pretty much Ready Player One / GamemasterAnthony’s Bring It In. So it’s Pretty drat Low I love this a lot. 14 Thranguy Set the World on Fire So I read this story last of all, because it’s 7k (7k!!!!) long, which is p bad already. I also deliberately made sure I read when I have no internet connection so I didn’t watch ten youtube videos while reading. So ok the crit is: Your beginning is not bad, which is bad! and the worldbuilding also isn’t bad, which is also bad! I was actually intrigued by this weirdass world with the way magic works, and the demon-summoning scene isn’t bad (repeat: bad). It sounds like mid-writing you realise you have to write a bad story, so you suddenly introduced a conflict with a CLOWN which lol and then a SATAN BABY which even more lol, but it inches a little too close to those premises which sound idiotic but under the hands of a good writer may turn out to be good. It’s High, so that’s bad! 15 Entenzahn What Ash Ketchum did on my summer vacation This story is very tongue-in-cheek which is bad! It reads like someone deliberately screwing around a premise to piss pokemon fans off but accidentally making them love the story. It’s almost “No john you are the demons bad”. There were some bits that made me laughed like the pikachu who jumped out of the pokeball dead because it wasn’t fed since pokemon yellow. It’s very Mid, and hey! You’re the first person right in the middle in my crits that’s an accomplishment. I will still not crit noir td week. 16 Fuschia tude Crawling In The Sand’s Hmmm I watched a couple of youtube videos in between reading this. Which is bad! The problem may be that it’s boring in its badness rather than entertaining in its badness. So let me try reading this again. Ok wait actually this story is pretty bad from a micro level, which means sentences and words are bad, but the story wasn’t interesting enough for me. That last line is fire though, just like my Youtube mix Chill Study Beats 4 • jazz & lofi hiphop Mix [2017] for Relax/Studying/Work. I’d say this is Mid-Low 17 sebmojo Upon the exigencies of the merciless advance of linear time Ok this story is forgettable, let me reread this. (this is not a plus for you) Oh yeah this is the one with the pretty bad freeze frame and flashback structure, where the only thing missing was “[record needle scratch] you must be wondering how I got into this situation”. I also appreciate the title being super loving pretentious. Hrm this is Mid-Low for me. 18 Maigius The Memphis Tales I actually do like this story structure which is bad! But I also appreciate how it’s basically a series of tell don’t show, and the absurd sudden inclusion of Elvis and a bunch of conspiracy theories from the 70s. Is it timely? It isn’t really. But yeah this is Mid of the pack for me. 19 curlingiron CATMAND AND CONQUER: CAT AND MEOWUSE PART 1: ORIGINS aka THE TAMING OF THE MEW, A LOVE STORy I lol at this story quite a few times, but it’s partly also because it’s very well-written (bad!) (Muffin, I really hate this scoring system) also good god I really like those placeholder texts they are just so good. The uneven capitalisation is a nice touch and very annoying, which is good! God drat it I hate this scoring system. Mid-high 20 Solitair Ready Prayer One Oh god this is so bad. Which is…… ugh it’s good! It has references! It has memes! It has the loving “everypony” word which I loving hate! It refers to Ready Player One, and I already did this earlier twice, which means this reference that I’m making is overplayed and therefore this is descending to badcrit territory! People are going to link to this crit and say “yes this is how you do not crit writings: a primer: 101” fuckkkkkk ok the misspellings (good) ““Like X-Man?” Christian asked.” (good) terrible capitalisation (i hate it, which is good!) entertaining (good!) ended with A DREAM (SO GOOD) Low 21 Flesnolk Interviews Ehhhh I’m not a fan of this, whether it’s bad or good. I watched 1. Giant Puffer Fish Eats Clams and Crabs!; 2. How to make vegan curry; 3. Jurassic World Evolution: 30 minutes first gameplay! And 4. Which Celebrity has the best mac’n’cheese recipe? I think you could have just cut to the ending of the two people vomiting blood at each other and it’s a better bad/good/bad/good entry. Was kinda bored throughout. Mid 22 Sham bam bamina! The Truth is Far, Far Out There Ok, I wasn’t a big fan of all the Interstellar stuff and the science jargon but goddamn does that ending not deliver an amazing gut punch in how bad it is. Just, I just want to say I really appreciate that I didn’t see that ending coming and I just laughed throughout how stupid it is, especially with it ending as THE BEGINNING. Low 23 QuoProQuid eScape from the CITY! 503 words Oh I like this. I enjoy all the over-informative parts on JC Penny items on sail, and that the kids yell that someone is hiding behind pants on sale for 50% off. It got a little absurdist rather than bad when the mom’s pant fort was set on fire, and I was gonna say this is high UNTIL that last line of “Kyle looked down at his shoes and cried because his parents were both dead for ever.” which made me laugh out loud. So This is Low 1. My first story uwu what's this 2. Horse Destiny (Princess Horse artwork horror) 3. The persistence of narrative (Deviantart profiles) 4. Ready Prayer One 5. The Truth is Far Far Out There (interstellar but jesus) 6. How My New Life Began (eye colour) 7. eScape from the City (stuff on sail) 8. Touch the Cactus 9. A Horse Called bob (metal brony) 10. Crawling in the Sands 11. Thunderdome is eternal (lots of reference story) 12. Comrade Meow 13. Upon the exigencies (record scratch freeze frame) 14. That time you went on a cat and stole a helicopter 15. Interviews (boring blood vomit) 16. Memphis Tales 17. Ash Ketchum 18. Catmand and Conquer 19. Jerry Kewl Adventures 20. Inchworm 21. []b untitled[/b] 22. Bearly a Story 23. Set the World on Fire
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Apr 3, 2018 06:58
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BAD JUDGE BURPS FROM BAD JUDGE FOR BAD WEEK inchworm I like it how the narrator gets angry at the end. Jamming the short and the long sentences together is deliciously bad because it could be effective if done well in a different context. Boy I want to punch the narrator in the face so well done there. horse called bob Super delighted at how very bad this was. Delicious details. I laughed due to the words inside the story. The ending is a gift from you to me. So bad. untitled but the bold tag is broken, nice Look buddy look here this rhyme makes it flow so it’s sweet and cute which isn’t bad. Dangerously straying into cute nice story territory. persistance of narrative w/in conceit Fuuuck yes. These is a serious of absolutely terrible lumps of poo poo. And the persistence of narrative is great, like, I feel for the narrator and his arc but all the words are total trash words, every word is garbage. The artwork progression is sublime. By the time the guy hits 80 he might be able to sketch a half-decent picture. thunderdome is eternal I hate the references I’m sorry. Thunderdome Ready Player One. It's awful I will give you that. jerry kewl adventures It’s too good. Just adding adverbs is a cheap way to make the writing bad. But actually its not that “bad” When I finally got home from the worst day of my life see this is actually good, that's not allowed. And he shouts yuppie in the end! Aw. horse destiny The badness is not buried in prose but in the plot and I respect that. Really delicious. The “message” is fantastic. This story tells us about the human condition w/ its badness. Boy was this a shining diamond of awful. cat search helicopter Once you get into it its flowly and poetic. its actually a decent story. Until the helicopter. The bad endging keeps it alive. Honestly I’d like this rewritten to be “not intentionally bad” as a prose poem 'cause you're onto a decent beat-like piece. comrade colonel Pretty bad nice prose but not very interesting. touch the cactus Oh this is a choice start of awful writing. Kinda falters. Ending is ridiculous but that's in the spirit of things. Love it how the writer skips the scenes they do not wanna write. A Good Bad Story. the bear one This is a bit straight. It’s more a humorous story than a bad story. anime ayn rand Sheer genius. The TL notes are great. Falling apart into creepypasta, oh boy. Anime Ayn Rand and her sword. I lick my fingers. I lick the spoon. I lick the bowl. I want more. We're long, sure, but on the plus side you took all the prompts, extra poo emoji for that. set the world on fire 7k words? I stopped reading pretty early. It’s more mediocre Mage the Ascention fanfic than anything else. ash ketchum Relies too much on references and not clever enough but fuuuuck it’s funny. Brute funny, like the boy in year 2 maths making farting sounds with his arm pit. crawling in the sand The bad prose is vile. It’s so bad. It’s really tasty. But it’s also dull which is the problem of having such vile prose. steampunk fairies Solid middle. Pretty funny, pretty ridiculous, entertaining, nothing stands out as being super awful. YA eye colour thing Haha yes. Science Gladiators. The Bridge. The Orphanage. Wonderful YA lampoon. I applaud. escape from the city Very funny and awful but doesn’t do very much. I chuckle, I forget about it. Interviews Set-up too long, peters out. Just go full Marxist, man. Not entertaining. Boring-bad. cat and meowse Very entertaining but no real teeth to it. I clap politely. memphis tales I like the tales idea and the setup and I learn about the human propensity for storytelling and how diverse we all are, badly, but I feel this could have been hilariously bad and it was a bit dull. ready prayer one A delightful mess. gently caress yes some choice lines here. It’s tasty. It’s hilarious in its awfulness. The title is a gem. the truth is out there This rules in how much it sucks. Great SF satire and the ending is a sheer delight. What an awful story. I grin. My ranking: higher rank/lower number is A Bad Story Which Is How I Like It. low rank/high number is A Good Story Booooo. 1 My First Story 2 Horse Destiny 3 Persistence of Narrative 4 Ready Prayer One 5 How My New Life Began 6 Touch the Cactus 7 The Truth is Far, Far Out There 8 Horse Called Bob 9 Inchworm 10 Escape From the City 11 Ash Ketchum 12 Crawling In The Sand's 13 The Cat One With Nazis And Cute Narrator Notes 14 Steampunk Faries 15 Memphis Tales 16 Awful TDome References 17 Untitled aka Rhyme 18 Mage The Ascension Fanfic I Stopped Reading 19 The Other Cat One 20 Flesnolk Interviews 21 Search For Cat 22 Bear 23 Jerry Kewl
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Apr 3, 2018 08:40
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Thunderdome Week CCXCVI: Challenge, Struggle, Tears & Triumph Judges: Tanz!, Antivehicular, and Fuschia tude! You train relentlessly. Your time, your sweat, every inch of your mind is dedicated towards it. The day comes, when everyone else comes to beat you down. A single day. A single decision. A single moment is all it takes to separate winners and losers. That is the moment we live for, competitor and fan alike. Welcome to Thunderdome! I am your head judge, Tanz! This week, you're going to pour everything you have into a story about competition. Specifically, a story centered around a competition, with two or more characters, at least two of which are competitors in the competition that your story centers around, which contains conflict between those competitors and a resolution to their conflict. Those are required. This isn't rocket science, it's basic writing, but it's worth pointing out so nobody writes me a characterless and plotless think-piece instead. Pick a competition in your sign up post. It can be any type of competition, from sports to singing to business to basket-weaving, with one exception: You can not select a writing competition. If you write about a writing competition, you receive an instant DQ. Before you get clever on me, this also extends to a poetry competition or anything else I think toes that line. Feel free to pick something someone else picked, though, as it'll make the tears and triumph all the sweeter. I'll even treat everyone who does as brawl entrants, with their own crits to reflect that, in addition to being competitors on our main stage. Suggestion: Choose a competition you're passionate about! I don't have an opinion either way about professional wrestling, but just today I watched a thirty minute video about it because the guy presenting was just that passionate. Those who are looking for a good challenge can request a competition as a flash rule instead. No erotica, fanfiction, nonfiction, poetry, political satire, political screeds, GoogleDocs, or quote tags. Sign-up deadline: Friday, April 6, 11:59pm USA Eastern Submission deadline: Sunday, April 8, 11:59pm USA Eastern Maximum word count: 1,800 Word bounty: +200 words to get a leg-up on your competitors if you're within the first half of sign-ups (rounded down). Don't worry if you don't make it in that gap, as everyone loves a good underdog story. Competitors: 1. Chainmail Onesie - Kenjutsu competition/taikai (+200 words) 2. CascadeBeta - pro wrestling  (+200 words)3. Deltasquid - street racing (+200 words) 4. Jay W. Friks - Russian Roulette (+200 words) 5. Exmond - Fashion competition (+200 words) 6. feedmyleg - fight to the death (+200 words) 7. Thranguy - Chess (+200 words) 8. flerp - starcraft (+200 words) 9. Crain - Staring contest (+200 words) 10. Schneider Heim - Magical safe-breaking (+200 words) 11. Propaganda Machine - Poker, any variation (+200 words) 12. cptn_dr - Drinking contest (+200 words) 13. Captain_Person - Parkour 14. Yoruichi - Loebner Prize 15. BeefSupreme - A job opening 16. ThirdEmperor - A contest to see how many billiard balls you can stuff in your mouth 17. QuoProQuid - Game Show 18. sparksbloom - Hunting contest 19. Bubble Bobby - A contest where people go back in time to kill hitler 20. Djeser - A contest where people go back in time to gently caress hitler 21. Kaishai - competitive barbecue 22. Sitting Here - tree climbing 23. Uranium Phoenix - Laser Tag 24. Ironic Twist - ambient music competition 25. Tyrannosaurus - university funding Emmideer fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2018 08:53
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In. Kenjutsu competition/taikai.
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Apr 3, 2018 09:43
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If those "guest star judge" slots aren't already taken, I'll take one.
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Apr 3, 2018 12:28
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In, pro wrestling.
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Apr 3, 2018 12:36
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In, street racing.
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Apr 3, 2018 12:56
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In with Russian Roulette
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Apr 3, 2018 15:33
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In with a fashion competition
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Apr 3, 2018 15:49
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Competition FAQ: Q: Does it need to be a formal competition? A: Nope. It can be anything from a world-wide tournament to a bet between friends, so long as the competition is about your chosen type. Q: Does it need to be a real competition? A: Nope. A magic competition could be between stage magicians, or between the realm’s mightiest wizards. Go wild! Q: Does my story really need a resolution to the competition? A: Nope. I said your story needs a resolution to the conflict between competitors. You can easily resolve one without resolving the other. Guess which one not being resolved will earn my ire.
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Apr 3, 2018 17:56
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In with a fight to the death.
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Apr 3, 2018 17:57
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Also: I'd like to write some crits, but I figure most people are just going to treat Bad Week as a fluke. If you do want crit for it (or desperately need my opinion on something else recent-ish), let me know.
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Apr 3, 2018 17:59
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In with Chess.
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Apr 3, 2018 19:19
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in with starcraft
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Apr 3, 2018 19:20
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Just a reminder that the long walk thread is still going strong for anyone who wants to for writing goals.
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Apr 4, 2018 00:22
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In, Staring contest.
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Apr 4, 2018 00:45
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In. Magical safe-breaking.
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Apr 4, 2018 03:37
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In, with the flash rule. Tell me something good.
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Apr 4, 2018 05:11
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So, there's been some confusion about ARCHIVE TAGS from poo poo week. I hosed up and wasn't sufficiently clear about loserwinners and winnerlosers. Mea culpa. I've been busy but that doesn't unscramble the eggs, so to speak. The blame's on me but also, this is Thunderdome soooo Tanz! and Chainmail Onsie both get winner tags in the archive, and both get a special LOSERWINNER avatar indicating their unique polar positions in this fucky and weird week. Don't like it?  CRY SOME MORE!
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Apr 4, 2018 05:50
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In with a Flash Rule.
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Apr 4, 2018 06:00
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Propaganda Machine posted:In, with the flash rule. Poker (any variation) cptn_dr posted:In with a Flash Rule. Drinking contest.
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Apr 4, 2018 06:07
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In. Gimme some flash.
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Apr 4, 2018 06:19
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Captain_Person posted:In. Gimme some flash. Parkour
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Apr 4, 2018 06:28
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Critiques for Week CCXCIII: St. Rita of Cascia, Pray for Us Sancta Maria, what a strange week--with only eight stories, we still managed to disagree on all of them but one. A general lack of enthusiasm helped us reach consensus. About half of the entries were all right, the other half some shade of disappointing, and just two inspired enough feeling either way to spark argument. At least I'm generally happy with the directions in which you took the prompt, if morbidly curious now whether the round would have been better or worse if I'd assigned someone the patron saint of lumberjacks. QuoProQuid, "Paradise Lost" It's unfortunate that this reminds me of other Thunderdome stories, most notably Jitzu_the_Monk's "The Ascension of Paul VI: What The Vatican Doesn’t Want You to Know" and Killer-of-Lawyers' "Order of Authorship Determined by Proximity." I do think it's only similarity, not copying; the plots and particulars are different. Though the novelty of the premise is less than you might have hoped, and though you didn't do all that much with the alien church, I like this entry in a mild way that put it safely in the middle. Ignoring too how not-alien these aliens are--what, did they have no culture of their own before humans came along?--it's a decent piece. The return to a wasted Earth is the grace note: up until that point it's competent but unmemorable SF, and if you'd ended on the aliens' disappointment, you would have stranded it in the Twilight Zone. Instead you close on hope and rebirth. It's very much a spring story. *** ******************** ****************** Thranguy, "Double Exposure" My theory is that you forgot you'd taken a 200-word penalty until it was too late. Something happened, surely, to explain why your entry is terribly paced, dawdling over details at the outset (with an overdose of commas in that first line, too; yikes) and then rushing the finale so badly that it took me a couple of rereads to figure out what happens. I believe your protagonist gave a child up for adoption in her senior year, and what she sees in the photographs is his ghost or astral projection. That's all very well, but it would mean more if the child weren't a last-minute arrival. You foreshadow him a little with the hints of a mysterious scandal in the past; it just isn't enough. There's too much said about things that don't matter and too little said about what's important. And of course the last sentence cuts off mid-stream, which you probably want to come across as a style choice, but which looks a lot more like somebody hitting a word-count wall. The story you aim to tell could fit into a thousand words; that your version of it needs more space is your fault, I think. This didn't have to be so disappointing. Most of it up until the reveal is even good, if slow. I didn't foresee voting for a DM, but unhappiness with your entry was the one point on which the judges were unanimous. *** ******************** ****************** Tyrannosaurus, "I am the King of Crete" I didn't vote for this DM initially either, but I came around. There's plenty here to dislike and little to enjoy unless you fancy weirdness for weirdness's sake. What I appreciate about it: You've tried something different. Your entries sometimes tread worn ground, returning to wells from which you've drawn before and too often; whatever else can be said about this one, it isn't a rehash of your previous work unless I've missed exposition-laden surrealism somewhere along the way. The dialogue is odd but earnest. The story doesn't lean on it for humor. Beneath the crust of lists and italicized colors, the work may have something to say. I see a message about life as a common man experiencing the world vs. life as a "king" in a cage, with all your knowledge spoon-fed to you. You aren't living if you don't find your answers for yourself, the story tells me--maybe. Possibly I'm forcing meaning into it because the alternative is that I've endured its idiosynchrasies for nothing. The prompt use is rather good, too. Your method of making everyone a king is particularly clever. What I don't care for: Almost everything other than the ambition, starting with that grind of a first paragraph. The color thing tries to be interesting and fails. The main character's introspection, likewise. Everything is bent to the purpose of sketching out the world, and the world has promise, but it isn't sufficient unto itself to make good use of my time. The strangeness of it all always has some measure of tedium dragging it down, but there's a little something to it right up until It is the most beautiful color, after which point the encounter with the druid king piles on more weird to not much purpose. I don't mean to say that removing that scene would fix everything; the line I quoted would maybe be a more satisfying, thematically appropriate ending than what you have now, but the story would still be the barest wisp of a thing. That last is what kills it, I believe. Taken in isolation and putting aside any considerations of how it relates to your past body of work, it doesn't offer enough beyond its strangeness. The characters are thin, insofar as they exist, and conflict and tension are absent. Does this particular story require such things? Well, they wouldn't hurt. Something needs to make it more interesting. "Fun" is not a word I'd use to describe it now, nor is "easy to read" an accurate phrase beyond the technical level. *** ******************** ****************** Antivehicular, "Trust and Grace" Ehhhh. There's nothing technically wrong with this and a good bit right about it, such as smooth sentences, polished prose, solid characters, and a sympathetic if small inner conflict. The dialogue's believable and in good proportion. If the present tense doesn't serve a purpose (and it doesn't), it's inobtrusive enough that to complain about it feels churlish. Yet for all the piece's virtues, it's a vignette. A self-esteem/relationship-angst vignette. The person at its center is pleasant but bland, her worries aren't that interesting, and I just... don't... care. The details will fade quickly from memory, and then what will be left? You should feel very good about the quality of your writing. The weakness I've seen in your stories that I've read is a certain emptiness, a lack of strong conflict, a tendency to make the resolution too easy--problems that can undermine the strength of your prose, as here. Kaishai fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jun 11, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 06:40
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Critiques for Week CCXCIII, Continued flerp, "Words Only Go So Far" A gravestone = money?? There's a disconnect between the first two sentences--it's not hard to piece together what's going on, but the writing's a little slipshod. Fortunately, that bobble doesn't foreshadow a messy story. Your prose has come a hundred miles since 2014. Reflection on your prior works is inevitable when looking at this one, at least for me who judged Ice Cream Week and remembers your entry then; the theme, the relationship, the characters, and the melancholy are essentially the same. A young(er) man copes with the fading memory and then the death of a grand/father in each. In both cases, the story ends with the man thinking of what he wishes he could say to the person he's lost. You do this sort of thing well. I would have been happy to see you win with that Tiger Tail story. I'm starting to think, though, that your range has suffered from the success you've had with sad, introspective vignettes. Those appear to be the bulk of your output now, and they're starting to sound too much alike, even though your merman redemptions prove you're capable of other things. Would you believe the fun and whimsical merman E/N post is my favorite of all the things you've written? Well, yes, you probably would, but it's not because of the sparkly tails, I swear. Anyway. On a different note, you played fast and loose with the prompt in an interesting way. The main character could be a "prince" insofar as he's the firstborn son and heir. The father could be called a "linguist" as he's skilled in more than one language. The scare quotes express the sidelong glance I'm aiming at your definitions, but they're clever enough to get the nod. I winced some at giving an HM to a rehash of familiar material and a DM to a piece that broke from its writer's usual mode, but "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" was a good story (with a prescient title), and so is its brother at the end of the day. *** ******************** ****************** Fumblemouse, "The Bellmaker's Wife" Barring a secret career as a wet nurse for Lord Edward, you've cheated in a frownworthy manner, as neither bellfounder nor baker nor nurse nor martyr nor natural disaster is he. Nor rape victim, and St. Agatha doesn't intercede for rape perpetrators. Obviously it didn't cost you much to sacrifice perfect prompt fulfillment in the interests of the story--it helped that you turned the prompt to your advantage elsewhere, evidently taking direction from Agatha's portfolio in more ways than one. I shake my head a little anyway because I don't think you needed to fudge. Imagine if Lord Edward were impotent. It could complicate/clarify his motivation for despoiling Catherine, and the story would otherwise be the same. Lord Edward could use a little more development, just as Harrison's hatred of the man needs more attention and expression: as it stands, the emotional stakes are too low until an ending that I found poignant but that impressed the other judges less for fair reason. All that said, I like this story a lot. You've probably spent too many words on the finer points of bellfounding that should have gone toward emotion, yes, but it's a lovely bit of research in action, moving hand in hand with the storyline. The ending revelation is unexpected and beautifully done. There's ambiguity throughout as to whether Harrison hears words in his bells' song because they're actually there, speaking to more minds than his, or whether he projects his intended messages into the sound, and I love how this plays out in the conclusion. Possibly Lord Edward doesn't hear Catherine in the great bell because no one but Harrison does. Possibly he can't hear an angel's voice, after what he's done. Each interpretation puts a different spin on the ending, and both are meaningful, with Harrison's final prayer a perfect capper. *** ******************** ****************** ThirdEmperor, "New Home" Detail after detail after increasingly clumsy detail makes the first few paragraphs a grind. Rawley/Riley has two names. The story is bloated by description, and repetitive description at that: I get that the Thing stinks, and I get that stuff spills out of it whenever you cut it open. You don't need to remind me so often! Only at the last do all these details begin to have a point. The good news is that when I realize what you're on about--that the Thing is an arcology itself, or something like, built by marine creatures; that Rawley is destroying the work of his spiritual brethren--there's a moment in which I appreciate the symmetry and the irony. This designer of an ecologically friendly space is not friendly to his local ecology. Coming away from the epiphany, though, I find that the story doesn't say much on that or any subject. There isn't much of an arc, a message, or a point. The piece rides much too much on sensory impressions that aren't all that great. You're aware that spring is questionably present, I think. You mucked that half of the prompt up but good. I could have gone with either this piece or Fuschia tude's for the loss in part for that reason, but your sealife-built habitat is a touch of genius. *** ******************** ****************** Fuschia tude, "Garnish" You went wrong in introducing three separate points of conflict (Sam's relationship with her mother, Sam's vague dissatisfaction at work, and Sam's the-grass-is-always-greener outlook on life in general) and then trying to solve them all with a lecture from her boyfriend followed by a decision to... scale back her wedding. Okay. Sure. That should win her mother's approval and turn the weed farm (ugh) into a garden of paradise, you bet. I imagine you mean to show Sam choosing to do something about the things making her unhappy instead of running from or complaining about them, and that's a solid idea, but you've botched it. The size of the wedding should be mentioned before the penultimate paragraph if it's such a significant issue. Worse, Sam's job ends up being largely irrelevant. Cutting the middle section wouldn't change the story. I understand it exists to make Sam a gardener as per the prompt, but maybe you'd have done better then to focus on the workplace angst instead of throwing it in as a side dish. On the topic of the prompt: you don't ignore it, not at all. In fact, you go further than most by incorporating a patronage of your saint that the Wikipedia list didn't mention. The small detail that Sam's mother embroiders gets a thumbs up for unobtrusively bringing her into St. Rose's fold. But then there's Stefan, an artist and/or advertising exec--not one of Rose of Lima's charges, either way. It's strange to see someone take pains to meet the prompt and apparently fumble it at the same time. This didn't kill you; the victorious story made a similar error, so I mention it more to let you know I did notice your more successful efforts. I wonder whether Stefan fell under Rose's patronage somehow in your head? If so, the whys and hows of that didn't make it onto the page. Kaishai fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Apr 5, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 06:40
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In with the Loebner Prize
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Apr 4, 2018 07:45
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oh hell yes in and flash let's get crazy
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Apr 4, 2018 07:59
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 23:31 |
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Kaishai posted:Critiques for Week CCXCIII, Continued Thanks! Tanz! posted:
I can star guest if you need another
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Apr 4, 2018 16:26
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