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ACIES 397 Words In her white glory, all her backstory has been wiped clean One hand on the wrong sandstone brick sent me tumbling down into darkness. Did I tell Bully I was going into the tomb? Will he look for me? Am I going to be famous for dying in a tomb like a moron? The anxious thoughts ricocheted through my head until I thumped into a softer material than I deserved. It knocked me out anyways. When I awoke and lit a torch I found I was not alone. A specter loomed in the center of the room. After the adrenaline fired and I leapt back I recognized the figure for what it was: a pristine marble statue of a woman in armor. “Hello,” I said, tiptoeing closer. Her upheld arm—toned muscles represented impeccably in the stone—raised a sword in salute. A warrior’s greeting. “It looks as though some people treasured you, but why did they put such a beautiful statue at the bottom of a trap chute?” At her feet was an oval pedestal with a small plaque. Most of the plaque’s milky marble was marred by gashes. Only one word remained: ACIES. “You really were a fighter, huh?” I paced the edges of the room and gathered my thoughts. “That may be, but I’m a survivor. You’re more than welcome to spend an eternity down here. I plan on escaping.” Despite my best attempts, I could not get my grapnel to find purchase in the shaft above me. Nor did I find another secret switch. It was looking more and more likely that Acies and I would be spending some time together. I revisited the prior day in my head. I met with Bully. Did I mention going to this tomb? “So. Acies. What brought you here? Did you slay a lot of your enemies? I bet you looked exactly as I see you now. Strong, confident, unafraid of death. Young. I know your type.” I got tired of pacing and sat. “I wish I could have known you in your time. I’m sure we could have learned a lot from each other. Perhaps you can help me.” I leaned back on my hands and told her all about me and my plans. I asked her advice on what tombs to check out, which to avoid. I was right after all; we shared stories and I feel like we both left knowing more than before.
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Nov 26, 2018 04:35
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Crits For Week 324, it came from the other house and would not leave (a.k.a. Psychological Horror Week) Overall thoughts: some pieces worked better for me than others, but I think this was a good week for effort and creativity on the whole. A problem with judging horror stories is that my judgment inevitably ends up very subjective, so apologies in advance if a lot of these crits end up with kind of broad statements about things just clicking or not clicking with me. Staggy, "House Rules" This has some good creepy bits, although I'm not sure it quite comes together as a single unified narrative for me. I'm still not exactly sure what's happening -- I imagine a transposition between real world and dollhouse? -- but I wish the throughline was a little clearer. Maybe that's my nitpicking, though? I do love the individual creepy bits in this, especially the bit about the "recovered"/replica grandma. Mercedes, "Veyesion" Oof, the narrator on this one. This may just be a matter of taste, since I've never really been into "rear end in a top hat meets his extremely predictable fate" horror, but the narrator in this story is so unpleasant that I just don't want to spend any time with him, even to watch him suffer. It doesn't help that the pacing is a bit lopsided, so it feels like we spend forever in this dumb gross rear end in a top hat's head pre-revenge and then rush through a confused fate. This could have afforded a little gloating from Chrissa, or maybe just being written from her perspective, so we have something more going on than "neural implant means rear end in a top hat gets tortured." Bolt Crank, "Carrier Crawlies" This story falls afoul of one of the major TD newbie problems: figuring out pacing and amount of content that can readily fit into the word limit. You're clearly trying to tell a story of corruption across generations, a sort of family curse story, but fitting it into TD word limits means that you're rushing through the story and sort of muddling what's going on. I think this would be a much stronger story if it were focused on the course of Maggie's illness, really fleshing out the progression there and filling in what happened to Elaine in the process, giving the horror time to breathe. As stands, there just isn't enough time to really feel for anyone. derp, "not there" This is an effective creepy piece that was completely overlooked during judging for no reason I remember, besides possibly dramatic irony. It's pretty much entirely about tone, without much else; this isn't a choice you can make in a lot of genres, but I think for horror, it works. I'm not completely sure what's going on here, but unlike a lot of pieces this week, the fact that it pulls off its creepy-wistful tone so well means I don't mind not solving the puzzle. AllNewJonasSalk, "Frozen Hanes" This is a weird one, because a story with the kind of sexual-squalor imagery this one has honestly shouldn't (and almost always doesn't) work in TD, and yet this is a decent piece. I think it helps that it's a horror week where viscerally unpleasant physical elements are well within genre, and I think it also helps that the sex stuff manages to be within an appropriately squalorous context and backed with effective descriptions of sensation. This piece is aiming for low, dirty horror, but it hits the target. sparksbloom, "Stachybotrys" Of the mold-based stories of the week, this one was my favorite, probably because of the impressively horrific lung stuff we have here. That opening visual of the paper-towel lung wiping stuck with me, and I appreciated the callback to it at the end of the story. This story isn't really trying to do anything revolutionary, but I think the execution is really quite good. flerp, "The Buried are Waiting" I spent far too much time thinking about this and trying to figure out whether there's actually a supernatural element here. Taking "he died before I was born" literally gives this an interesting eerie undertone -- the deadbeat dad as a literal ghost, who haunts the world but can't stay with his family -- but ultimately, I think I was misguided here. There's plenty of horror here even with the mundane reading: the horror of looking like and being bound to someone you can't forgive. Really nice piece. NotGordian, "The Truth" This story made me define a new principle for evaluating psychological horror: that successful psychological horror should be readily distinguishable from the narrator just getting really stoned and hallucinating, which is definitely not the case here. Doing this "reality is revealed and it's horrific" kind of narrative is hard at best, and I honestly can't tell if the narrator here is having an authentic revelation or just a bad trip or panic attack. There needs to be more here, both for interest and to throw the readers a bone. Lottie, "Doge" This one also blows the "psychological/cosmic horror, or really stoned protagonist freaking out?" test, except this time I can't even tell what's going on. We have a ranting conspiracy-theorist kid, a narrator who seems attracted to him anyway (which, to be fair, isn't implausible in a teenager), and then... whatever's happening passes through to her? I'm really not sure what's supposed to be happening here. apophenium, "A Place of Scant Light" This is a piece with a nice soft touch. I like how the SF-y worldbuilding is in and of itself a good horror setup (a world where the sun is hostile), our protagonist has some nice subtle characterization with their fantasy life, and the whole thing is low-key in an effective way. I'm not sure low-key is always the way to go -- a lot of the time, it can make horror anticlimactic -- but this whole setup does it very successfully, with a good low-grade fear and misery. Solitair, "Living In a Box" This is kind of skirting the line between horror and SF, and I think it may have fallen on the wrong side of that line for me, because I found it hard to find this scary. It also reads like an outline for a longer piece, probably because the story idea we're talking about (protagonist gets captured, more or less entirely rewrites his brain to function in his new environment, then gets rescued and can't deal with it) is the sort of thing that needs a lot of building, so writing it at TD length feels telly. I wonder if reducing the time scope, so we just see Zach during a crucial moment of transition that suggests a whole, might have worked better. Fumblemouse, "black mold" When I mentioned horror and my judgment of it being subjective, this is really the story I was thinking of. I feel like this one is fine, certainly competently executed, but it didn't do much for me. I think I would have liked to see more meat behind the contradiction of "ghost telling beloved mourner to live and enjoy life or she'll fuckin' kill him"; is this something about the afterlife that creates the aggression, as foreshadowed by the first dialogue bit, or was this maybe an undertone of their relationship in life? I dunno. I think maybe I just needed this to have a twist instead of just being a straightforward "sad sack told not to be sad sack by the Great Beyond" story. The Saddest Rhino, "Pieces of" Now this I like. What I appreciate most about this is that it's deeply horrific while using purely realistic elements: a plausible real-world scenario, and limited supernatural elements that may just be psychological, along with some in-depth psychological horror elements. A protagonist trapped in helplessness and pain, lashing out at everyone nearby and struggling with/denying the fact that their issues are nobody's fault, is maybe the most disturbing thing from this week and doesn't need any supernatural juice to get there. A very affecting story. Yoruichi, "Don't Go" This story skirted the line of the week theme on a few levels. First off, the "no violence" rule seemed bent if not precisely broken here; sure, there's no on-screen violence, but the focus is still disproportionately on gore. Second, it really feels like this is barely a psychological story, and the focus is so much more on the grossness of the zombie mom (mombie?) than the protagonist's real sense of loss. We have some gestures here, particularly at the boyfriend, but it's just not really realized, and as a result the story feels very shallow. Thranguy, "His Voice" Dang, the reveal on this is killer, quite possibly the best single visual of the week. I just wish the rest of the story were strong enough to support it. There's a flattened emotional affect here that I can't tell if is intentional or not, like the protagonist rather nonchalantly referring to his mother's death as his father "losing an eye and a wife." The reveal of this story is so balls-out crazy that it's really weird that everyone's reactions are so... blase. I just wanted someone to authentically freak the gently caress out about "oh, by the way, your dad is actually a grackle piloting your father's corpse," because it's really freak-worthy, and yet. Anomalous Blowout, "The Sound" Really good freaky mood carried through the entire story. The combination of both apparent apocalypse and the personal horror of what's going on in the boat make this a stronger piece than either would be on its own, as we also saw with apophenium's story. I don't have a ton to say about this one, honestly; it's just solid and eerie all the way through, and it's a nice read. sebmojo, "Tennis Elbow Foot" I didn't get as much out of this one as the other judges. I get that this is supposed to be a freaky isolated moment, and in that regard it works reasonably well, but it didn't quite seem like a complete story to me. That said, this is another subjective judgment (the theme of this week), and the imagery here is really solid.
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Nov 26, 2018 04:37
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I Am Still There 350 Words It's only an avalanche away; you're safe I am still under the snow. It presses on me and I cannot fill up my lungs. I must be cold. I must be stupid. They don’t put up warning signs on the slopes for nothing. I blink frost from my eyes. I can feel my heart drumming away. My hands are cold and numb. I will die here. And then my right hand is holding something warm and I take a full breath and he asks me where I am and I say I’m still there. He tells me to come in out of the cold but my body is too numb so he carries me. He is patient with me. He’s heard it all before. I was doing better. It is a struggle every year then the weather starts turning cold at night not to go outside, to feel that cold again, to feel the heat of my life pulled into the environment. But it is not healthy and so he is taking me to a new therapist tomorrow to try something new. The therapist doesn’t mean to but she puts me under the snow again. My eyelids flutter and I don’t breathe enough. I tell her where I am. I tell her I feel it in my chest and in the tips of my toes and fingers. My nose. I notice this. I am not in the snow anymore, but I still am. I see myself in the snow, through the snow. My pitiful little self trying not to die. I say I want to forgive him. I am crying now. I want to forgive him and I want to help him. I open my eyes and follow the therapist’s finger. The coldness in my hands intensifies as I dig down to myself in the snow, still so warm down there in my ice cocoon. I pull myself out of the snow. I am smiling now. Where are you now, she asks. I’m in bed with Miro. The sheets are warm with our heat and I feel happy. I feel safe. Where do you feel that? I feel it in my heart.
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Nov 26, 2018 04:58
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Crits for Week 327: Check Out All Our Majesty Yoruichi, "Guardian" This is a nice enough piece, but it feels a little disjointed. The thing that sort of threw me was that the human characters clearly recognize the dragon as existing, but seem ignorant of or uninterested in the pesanta; I suppose the point is that they're tied up in their own suffering, but isn't the conflict with the pesanta symbolic of that, in a way they should notice? I'm not sure if the two levels on which this story functions end up tied together quite as well as they should be. autism ZX spectrum, "Catalyst" On the subject of disjointedness, let's talk about this story. The use of multiple POVs in a 1200-word story is tricky at best, and in this case it makes a confusing, packed action story even harder to follow than necessary. I'm not convinced we need Sarah's POV at all here; while it adds to the action, I feel like just showing things from George's side (he goes home, Sarah isn't there, maybe he knows she was up to some shady poo poo and does the math) would make this story way, way more coherent. Have them rendezvous at the end if you like? Just stick to one thread, because there's a lot going on here and multiple narrators makes it harder to follow. Also, not gonna lie, this really doesn't feel like a dragon story. I don't want to get picky about prompt adherence, but this didn't work for me in that regard. Also also, I'm still trying to figure out how the "use porcelain earring to shatter plate-glass bus window into a million shards" trick works. I'm not sure I'll ever know. (I guess auto glass standards are way down in this dystopia? Which, I mean, fair enough.) Thranguy, "The Dragon Rings the Bell" This is nice harmless children's nonsense, silly but gentle and enjoyable to read. (A shout out for writing a dude with a Lego room and a model-train room and not making him a goon stereotype/joke character, which is an incredible act in a TD story.) There's not a lot of character or plot depth here, but for the genre, that's perfectly fine, and it hits the proper beats for the story it's trying to be. You're meeting folklore with folklore here, and I think it works. Solitair, "Wrapped Around Your Finger" The initial scene of the family at dinner, the empty chair, and the tatzelwurm arriving to fill it is nicely realized, but after that, this story starts to feel a bit rushed and tell-y, following very archetypal beats. It's okay to tell a very basic story like this, but I was hoping for some kind of twist or unexpected depth that would make it something new and interesting. Okay for what it is, but I wish it had been a little bit more ambitious. Chairchucker, "Daisy and the Drains" This is another piece that's okay for what it is -- honestly, I'd upgrade that to well-executed for what it is -- but where I just didn't really like what the piece was trying to be. I was more intrigued by the situation of this bar band formed around a monster and trying to pretend this was all normal and acceptable, that this situation wasn't surreal and horrific, than the jump to snarkily-described rape peril that we got. (Sort of ambivalent on snarkily-described rape peril in general, to be honest.) In terms of objective quality, this was the clear runner-up for the week and may have deserved an HM, but I just didn't enjoy it. Mea culpa.
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Nov 26, 2018 05:15
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Grey Hunt (398 words) Read it in the archive. Kaishai fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2018 06:10
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Ty for the crit!
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Nov 26, 2018 06:56
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Antivehicular posted:The hole I dig is bottomless but nothing else can set me free Digging Holes is Really Hard, OK? 500 words exactly including title. The easiest part of murdering Paul ends up being the actual killing. He’s very trusting and lets me into his house, and into the kitchen where I stab him through the neck. He stares at me while he’s dying, and keeps staring after he’s dead, which isn’t really his fault at this point, but it’s very unnerving and is exactly the kind of creepy behaviour that got him murdered. It’s at this point that I start to think about what to do after murdering him, and I realise that perhaps I should’ve given that some thought beforehand. At the time I guess the utter rightness of my plan blinded me to the legal implications of murder. In a perfect world I could just tell the police all the things he did and how creepy he was, and they’d nod understandingly and say, ‘you did the right thing’, but you’ve got to be consistent with laws I suppose. So, I roll him up in his rug and take him out to his backyard, and he’s got a shed and in the shed there’s a shovel, and I start digging a hole to put him in, when my phone rings. I look at it and it’s my sister, and I love my sister, but this is an inconvenient time, and she’s always picking the most inconvenient times. And obviously I wouldn’t murder her for this, blood is blood after all, but she really needs to be more careful. “Hello,” I say. “Hey, what are you up to at the moment?” “Just digging a hole,” I say, carefully omitting the part about having murdered Paul. I love my sister, but she just wouldn’t understand about how creepy Paul was, and why he needed to be murdered. “What for?” she asks, and I try to think of a way to explain what I’m doing without explicitly saying that I’ve just murdered Paul, but while I pause, she says, “Never mind that, are you coming tonight or what?” I feel terrible for forgetting. She’d been looking forward to this for weeks and I told her I’d come, and then I go and schedule a murder on the same day. “Oh sorry, I lost track of time,” I say, which is a little white lie, but I think those are all right when done to preserve someone’s feelings. I don’t want her to think something else is more important than spending time with her. Even murdering Paul. “I’ll be there soon.” I take Paul back inside and shove him in the pantry, then I go to my sister’s place. My nephews are somewhat annoying, but they’re young, so much can be excused. Besides, they’re family. It’s nearly midnight by the time I leave. Paul’s house is on fire, and I remember that he had the oven on when I visited. I’m embarrassed to have missed an important detail, but relieved that I don’t have to bother with the hole anymore.
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Nov 26, 2018 07:41
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Antivehicular posted:it's such a simple machine, she doesn't have to use force Myoclonic 399 words Anja had run out of verbs. She stood in the downpour, a thin wet silhouette, neon catching on her hard edges. People were starting to notice the body at her feet. They were starting to notice and starting to point. Someone would pick it up on the behavioural scanners if it hadn't already been called in. Some collection of circuit and sinew within had misfired. She tried to plead with the nearest bystander and watched her hand lunge forward in hyperlapse. The stiletto caught the reverse of the world like a slim, dark portal. Then it caught metal, muscle and flesh. Anja screamed. More accurately, Anja's brain fired a blast of neurons at her vocal chords. Anja didn't even open her mouth, she slashed wildly. The man in front of her fought to shield his face from the angry metal point and stem his leaking gut, failing horribly at both. Anja ran, related to find her legs cooperate. She dashed blade-first away from the two cooling bodies, followed by shouts but no footsteps. She studied the knife as she jogged between shadows. The smith had favoured function over form, the handle a canvas-bound afterthought to the dark, narrow blade. The slender neue-steele tapering off to a glinting tip, sparkling with malice and echoes of ionised noble gas. Anja rounded the corner, and stopped. Three loading docks bullied the lane into a dead-end. Anja’s wrist shot out in front of her as a four letter word crash-landed between brain and mouth. A distant siren grew slowly toward a crescendo. Blues and twos swept light and wind across the rooftops and down into the gunmetal cul-de-sac. Anja hadn’t paid her legal insurance in a while, so due process was out of the question. Without coverage, two murder counts would be shoot on sight - then an unceremonious dropoff in some forgotten corp-remand. In the back of one of the docks was a transformer, a beast of a thing. She could hear it humming from metres away, enough juice flowing through it for her to wonder briefly why there was only one paltry lightning bolt ensconced in its yellow triangle. She looked up at the swirling column of debris and rainwater as the patrol car came into view overhead. She swiped madly at the air instead of shielding her eyes, and looked back at the transformer. Anja ran. She had one more verb.
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Nov 26, 2018 08:08
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Antediluvian 400 words sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2018 09:00
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Antivehicular posted:
Thanks for the crit!
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Nov 26, 2018 12:59
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thanks for crits anti
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Nov 26, 2018 13:25
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Submissions are closed.
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Nov 26, 2018 13:32
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Inter prompt: What's with all the ooze
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Nov 26, 2018 22:38
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The Interprompt Adventures of Mosebjo: 12 “What’s with all the ooze?” said Mosebjo. Black spots floated in front of his vision like inverse fireflies. “Did you clean these wounds at all?” Space Captain James’ face was screwed up with disgust as he stripped rotten bandages from Mosebjo’s bicep. Ooze just means it’s healing! said the ghost of Mosebjo’s father, hovering nervously over James’ shoulder. “Ooooooooze,” Mosebjo moaned, and then passed out.
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Nov 27, 2018 01:36
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dreadmojo posted:Inter prompt: What's with all the ooze Either an Orgy Pit or a Gathering of Enthralled Smurfs Allow me to answer a question with a question: And what's with all the 'Ah's and 'Oh's?
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Nov 27, 2018 01:37
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Jeff checked his Casio. 8:30am April 15th, 1987. His memory was a little foggy. He signed his name under the Stage Crew column and passed the clipboard back to the terminally bored guard. It was for the best, if the guard looked too close he might see Jeff's pupil's were the size of pin heads. He followed the handwritten signs posted all over the recycling facility until he found the rest of the film crew, already setting up near the gargantuan shredder. Danza wasn't ready yet by the looks of it and this whole stupid after school special was his idea. Jeff locked himself in a port-a-potty and slid an ivory box from his pocket. He cupped a tiny bump of the fine white flakes on a fingernail and inhaled. He didn't remember getting his gear or even how he'd managed to climb the ladder to the top of the shredder, but right now his entire being was focused on keeping the boom mic directly over Tony Danza as he fumbled his way through a third take. "Welcome to a very special episo-" "Cut!" the director yelled, "more light!" A spotlight burst to life right where Jeff was looking. He sneezed. The boom mic caught Danza in the sternum, sending him flailing into the shredder. Jeff slid down the ladder and slammed the shutoff switch, but macerated viscera were already pooling at the machine's base. Humour. Humour could fix this. He tapped his mic and heard it echo through the silent stage. "I..I guess we'll never know ooze the boss, eh? Eh? Is this thing on?"
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Nov 27, 2018 02:04
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Results For Week 329 Fun-sized candy bars might not be fun, but this week was! You all wrote some neat little stories, and I enjoyed judging them. With no further ado: The win goes to sparksbloom's "A Trophy," for the most arresting single image of a week full of 'em. HMs go to Thranguy's "The Deck Behind the Old House" (nice poetic character study), Djeser's "The City of Glass" (gorgeous imagery), Kaishai's "Grey Hunt" (good imagery, nice fairy-tale feeling), and Sitting Here's "Strange Silk" (makin' me feel bad for a silkworm). DMs go to Erainor's "The Red Tide" (this is just exposition), Saucy_Rodent's "Pink Glow" (interesting premise ending in gratuitous murder), and derp's "The Rich" (pointless feel-baddery). The loss goes to the third part of derp's triptych, "For Thanksgiving," for being especially tasteless as well as pointless feel-baddery. This was not the technically worst story of the week, but it was unpleasant enough to read that I started skimming halfway through, which for a 500-word story is loving death. I yield the throne to sparksbloom!
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Nov 27, 2018 03:44
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PROOOOOOOMPT but also CRIIIIIIIIITS Given we only had one lonesome judge this week I'll offer to do some crit swapsies if anyone wants one
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Nov 27, 2018 04:03
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Week 330: Ray Gun Control This week, I want you to write something in the genre of fantasy or sci-fi, BUT I’m looking for a low-stakes conflict. Essentially, I’m looking for fantastical settings, worlds unlike our own, but I don’t want to see any action-adventure-pulp nonsense, I want you to write stories about robots and aliens having spats or a momma dragon that misses her recently nest-gone baby. Willing to take a pretty expansive view of what constitutes “fantasy or sci-fi,” but I will get mad at you if you gently caress up the “low-stakes conflict.” Here are some rules you should follow if you’d like to avoid a DQ:
* No worse-than-death situations of lost sanity, eternal life in pain, or whatever -- nothing cute to get around the previous rule. * Nothing about the fate of the world, or a large city, or that sort of thing. * No poetry, no fanfic, no erotica, no screeds, no Google Docs, no quote tags. Flash rules available on request, via Emily Dickinson. Word limit: 1,000 words Enter by: Saturday, December 1, 4:00 AM PT Submissions due: Monday, December 3, 4:00 AM PT Entrants: Djeser  Thranguy Solitair SurreptitiousMuffin autism ZX spectrum Antivehicular Obliterati apophenium derp Saucy_Rodent Ottermotive Insanity Flesnolk QuidProQuid Tyrannosaurus Maigius Deltasquid Sitting Here Judges: sparksbloom steeltoedsneakers sebmojo sparksbloom fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Dec 3, 2018 |
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Nov 27, 2018 04:31
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im inicated (with words) also to crit all of last week's stories by close of entries on saturday
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Nov 27, 2018 05:06
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sparksbloom posted:Judges: Let's avoid solo judges happening again. I'm the second ?????.
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Nov 27, 2018 05:36
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Thanks, anti. Yeah, I figured the ending to Pink Glow was both a little obvious and maybe insensitive to people who actually suffer from schizophrenia. But I also thought I would lose automatically because of the opening paragraph of Kimberly, so I actually came out ahead! Derp, anti is 100% right about The Rich and For Thanksgiving, but if it means anything, I really liked Eat.
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Nov 27, 2018 05:37
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Thx. I often forget that generally people want to enjoy the things they read. I had a vague hope that I'd get my first win before my first loss, but alas, thems the breaks
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Nov 27, 2018 05:48
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In, and flash, sure.
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Nov 27, 2018 05:49
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IN and flash please
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Nov 27, 2018 07:19
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Yeah sure, In.
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Nov 27, 2018 07:43
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Crit Farts for Derp Eat This is a middley story for me. I would have liked more description of this world. You mention near the end that the Feeders have grown to the size of mountains, but I was struggling to picture exactly what you meant. When they're throwing people in, do they literally have to climb to the top of a mountain? What let's this down is that the horror of this dis-utopia, and then the call for revolution, both felt a bit muted. The Rich I think this is the best of your three entries. Yeah it's kinda gross but it commits to its grossness so I think it works. It's a pretty straightforward idea - mean rich guy gets off on cruelty and power - but I thought it was well done. For Thanksgiving I probably wouldn't have given this the loss. Yep it's gross, but that's the point. Like your second story the concept is simple and the portrayal of it is pretty effective. But, because the core concept is so simple - rich people are awful - it's not the most interesting read of the week. Of the three, Eat is probably the only one I'd want to read more of, because it had the most interesting premise.
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Nov 27, 2018 09:23
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I'm in
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Nov 27, 2018 13:12
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In, and I'll take a flash rule.
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Nov 27, 2018 17:11
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ty for the crits!
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Nov 27, 2018 17:27
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I'm that guy you're fairly certain won't submit and is, regardless, in
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Nov 27, 2018 17:39
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Always down for some sci-fi. In.
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Nov 27, 2018 17:59
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i guess i better redeemIN myself. i'll take a prompt, too i meant flash, whatever. a thing
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Nov 27, 2018 18:17
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In me, flash me
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Nov 27, 2018 19:07
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Thranguy posted:In, and flash, sure. This was in the White of the Year-- That -- was in the Green -- Drifts were as difficult then to think As Daisies now to be seen -- Solitair posted:IN and flash please How many Flowers fail in Wood -- Or perish from the Hill -- Without the privilege to know That they are Beautiful -- Antivehicular posted:In, and I'll take a flash rule. It is an honorable Thought and makes One lift One's Hat As One met sudden Gentlefolk Upon a daily Street derp posted:i guess i better redeemIN myself. i'll take a prompt, too There came a Day at Summer's full, Entirely for me -- I thought that such were for the Saints Where Resurrections -- be -- Saucy_Rodent posted:In me, flash me A Route of Evanescence With a revolving Wheel -- A Resonance of Emerald -- A Rush of Cochineal --
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Nov 28, 2018 01:24
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In flash
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Nov 28, 2018 04:45
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I am just gonna randomly post crits for stories I happened to read last week until someone crits me back. A crit for Kaishai's Grey Hunt I thought this was a cool little portrayal of a huntress' agony at searching for, then finding, her quarry. The fact that she is hunting a colour is an interesting premise and the descriptions of the absence of colour were great. The tone and setting - with a palace, a Queen protecting her son, etc. - was a little bit generic fantasy novel-y for my me. I think it would have been better to have changed the setting up a bit. The idea of colours going missing feels too crazy for a familiar medieval/fantasy world with Kings and Queens and Princes.
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Nov 28, 2018 08:53
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A crit of Myoclonic by steeltoedsneakers There are some very cool words and images in this. The wet neon cyberpunk imagery is a great backdrop to the descriptions of Anja's horror as her wired-up body misfires. But, I don't get it. What do you mean she'd run out of verbs? The story itself doesn't seem to relate to this idea, albeit that I'm not sure what you meant by it.
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Nov 28, 2018 09:05
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A crit of gently caress Space. Just gently caress It. by Djeser I thought this was great - space-based sex jokes, what's not to love. My juvenile sense of humour aside I thought the prose was good and tight with just the right amount of sci fi jargon and swear words. I think it's fair to say this story achieves its objective. Kapow.
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Nov 28, 2018 09:13
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A crit of Kimberly by Saucy_Rodent What the Kimberly is going on with this first paragraph? This was bad; don't do this. It felt like this story couldn't decide who it was about. It's in the first person but we don't really learn anything about the narrator. Then it seems like it's about Kimberly the ghost, but then she's replaced with Katie the ghost. Then it's about the apartment itself, or is it about Tanya? The idea of the apartment photographing memories is a cool one - I think you needed to focus on that, rather than talking about the life stories of a bunch of characters who don't actually matter.
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Nov 28, 2018 09:19
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