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onsetoutsider skunk story crit this is rather low effort, which the ending gives away very heavily. and i think it's obvious why the ending doesnt work. you set up a kind of horror-adjacent idea -- an ever growing pile of skunks -- and end it with a dude yelling "Sir Stinky the Smell-nifiscent" so yeah anyone could tell you didnt try with this ending. having your character die of a brain hemorrhage is also somehow even worse than the predictable answer of "getting murdered by a creepy weirdo in the woods" because now the story doesnt even teach a valuable lesson like "dont follow skunk carcasses into the woods and knock on the door of a cabin where the skunk carcasses seem to be coming from." anyways, ending bad, so what. the rest of the story is relatively decent, but it meanders way too much. like, you couldve cut the first paragraph, and just made the first line be "there was a big ol' skunk pile," and this is already a story where barely anything happens. the other thing is you set up the skunk pile as being something supernatural -- dead things not smelling or even having flies is not natural at all -- but the ending doesnt pay that off at all. it's just a dude in the cabin. why arent the corpses smelling or decaying or covered in flies? the answer is, of course, you were lazy. however, your character has no reason to do anything. she stops at the skunk pile because ????? and then she follows the skunks into the woods because ???? and then she enters the cabin because "well, i came this far already, might as well" which doesnt work because she wasnt motivated to do anything of this to begin with. again, another tell-tale sign of laziness. the character just does things because the plot needs to happen and it's very self evident. and, of course, your character has no character. they do things because you know characters are supposed to do things in stories. the initial buildup to the skunk pile is decent, although the first paragraph is v wordy, you build into something resembling tension as you slowly ramp up the weirdness. hell, it mightve staved off a loss if it had an ending that was more interesting than "creepy dude in the woods" and had at least some kind of supernatural element that justified the skunks not smelling. it all completely deflates at the ending, of course, but the tension is there. but the protag doesnt matter and the ending doesnt matter and nothing really matters in this story, as i think we all know,
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Mar 19, 2019 02:10
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onsetOutsider's Barbara's Morning Commute okay. you made a stink, you get a crit. Barbara gets top billing, but is not really any kind of character. She seems to largely exist to convey the PoV of the story along her shoulders like a camera-headed freak of nature. The set up of more and more skunks piling up aside the road could be the set-up of a joke, it has a certain pattern-building rhythm common to the start of jokes, but I don't feel you could claim it actually was in this instance. What a 'joke' is, well, that's even more contentious than what a story is, but I'd hold it to involve a certain necessary element of subversion. So, a thing where more and more skunks pile up, and then there's a big stink, is not really a joke. A big stink is about what you expect when skunks are piling up. The old man wearing the skunks is another cardboard stand-in for a character. Even the stink itself is mostly told, rather than shown, killing the chance of this actually grossing me out, which might've surprised me and been worth about half a point. The reason I didn't bother in the first place was, well, I feel like you know these things already. If I've genuinely helped you improve, great. The number one step you can take to improve, though, is to get these in earlier -- and probably step away from using defenses like 'this was at least as much of a sincere effort as the last time I dropped an incredibly late story to avoid being banned'. You compared it to your teatime with an eldritch horror story, and I'd disagree. That story was genuinely surprising and disarming. This whole affair was predictable.
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Mar 19, 2019 02:21
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I liked onsetoutsider’s story in the same way I enjoy a well thrown paper ball from the back of the class. Doesn’t mean that kid deserves good grades, but my enjoyment is real.
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Mar 19, 2019 02:31
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flerp posted:onsetoutsider skunk story crit I'm gonna piggyback off this good crit for my own thoughts. I suspect you'll be writing this one off as "dumb premise," but I honestly think the premise is fine, and I was interested in the first paragraph. The concept of roadkill piling up to impossible levels over the course of a week, and nobody noticing until the situation is beyond absurd, is a perfectly good magical-realism-flavored premise. I can imagine any number of good stories starting with that skunk pile. The real problem here is progress and execution. I know you had time-management issues, but I also suspect you had confidence issues, convinced yourself the whole concept was stupid, and deliberately half-assed it from there. I feel like this is maybe something you've done before in TD, and I'd like to see you get away from it, because it's self-sabotage and frustrating to read. I'm not sure what concrete advice I have for you, besides working on time management, but I think outlining might help -- give yourself a firm foundation to write from, both in terms of knowing where a story's going and in maintaining confidence that it's going somewhere worth putting effort into. Give it a shot.
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Mar 19, 2019 02:50
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Also, in.
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Mar 19, 2019 04:51
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In.
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Mar 19, 2019 04:52
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In.
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Mar 19, 2019 06:22
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I have a fistful of flash rules to hand out.
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Mar 19, 2019 08:06
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For the new page:Djeser posted:Thunderdome Week 346: A Fistful of Magic Missiles
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Mar 19, 2019 08:06
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In, flash.
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Mar 19, 2019 08:14
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In, flash
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Mar 19, 2019 08:14
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In.
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Mar 19, 2019 08:16
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Crits of the stories I read from week 345 A Broken Clock by Doctor Zero (You get a long crit because I read this on the weekend and had time). I’m not sure when the coffee date went sour, but my enthusiasm was definitely waning. Nor could I pinpoint the issue precisely. I pondered while he related a story about his friends. Your story ends in its opening line, and not in a good way. I immediately understand that the protag is on a date and that the date is over, and am immediately bored. Blaise was cute, clean, and well dressed, bringing a nice blazer and a scarf. The conversation had started easy and felt natural. He asked questions about me and my interests, but always ended up talking about own views. Was the confidence and charm that I found attractive two nights ago in reality, ego? Perhaps. “Bringing” is not the right verb for a scarf. Just say “wearing.” Blaise is very boring. Then I realized that he made too many assumptions - that this (whatever this was) was a done deal. He said I’d meet friends, we’d go places together, as if we had agreed to more than just coffee. We hadn’t. I tried to figure out if my inner voice was being protective or perceptive as he flipped over the check. I cannot express how bored I am of these two people at this point. “Oh my god!” He exclaimed, and I startled out of my thoughts. “Did they overcharge?” “No, look at this!” He handed over the bill. I examined it. A mocha for him, chai latte for me. A chocolate croissant that we shared. Looked correct. I shook my head. “I’ll give.” “See anything unusual?” I looked again. The name of the server, ‘’Becka’? I was about to say I didn’t know when I saw the total. “Oh, $11.11? That’s neat I guess.” He smiled as if he had the punchline to a joke I wasn’t getting. “Do you know what time is was when I kissed you the other night?” I blinked. That was random. I thought about it - pictured the night dancing, him asking for my number. After I gave it to him, he leaned forward and ever so gently kissed my lips. I thought it was sweet. “Some time around midnight?” “It was 11:11 pm,” he said. “I remember looking at the clock. “Oh, huh. That’s … funny.” Still bored. Considering giving up on this story at this point. “Actually,” he said and leaned over the cafe table with a glance around as if he were imparting state secrets, “1111 is a good omen.” But wait! Blaise might actually be a crazy weirdo or perhaps a wizard. THIS is where the story should have started. Instead of the 400 words of bla bla above you could have just said something like, ‘I was about to get up and leave, date over, when Blaise flipped over the bill and said, “Look at this! $11.11, a good omen.’” Actually that’s a crap opening line but you get the idea. Was he putting me on? “Ah.” I said, unsure what else I should say. These two lines communicate the same thing, i.e. the fact that the protag is confused and unimpressed. You don’t need both of them. Stop saying umm. “Look at the table number,” he said. I did so. An embossed plastic tag informed me it was 22. I raised an eyebrow. “Twenty two? Another secret number?” He clucked. “It’s 11 and 11.” When I didn’t drop my eyebrow, he said “11,” pointed at me, “plus 11” and pointed to himself. “Ohhhh.” I said. “And, I got here at 11:11 today. I made sure of it.” He nodded as if that said everything, which it didn’t. “Okay,” I said with a shrug, “I’ll bite. What’s special about 1111?” This is also boring chit chat. “Well, in numerology the number one is significant, as you can imagine. One is the smallest integer before zero. One is self. Every person is one. It indicates the universe, because there is only one. Mathematically, it’s also the basis for everything. Anything times one is one. Prime numbers are only divisible by themselves and one. When you get a pattern of one, it’s a sign of good luck.” Ok things are getting interesting again. This should have been your second paragraph. “Uh… huh,” I said. This is the dialogue equivalent of “and then the protag sat still and did nothing.” Give them an action, or have them feel a feeling. Something that either tells us something about them or advances the action (ty to whoever it was that posted the link to Kurt Vonnegut's rules of writing from which I just stole that line). “Oh! Look at the time here on the receipt. 12:45. Two minus one is one. Five minus four is one. One and one!” He beamed. “Well, it would really be one minus two, and four minus five, which is negative one and negative one. Wouldn’t that be bad?” “No!” He was really getting excited now. “Because negative one times negative one is … one!” Yep, this date had absolutely gone south. “Okay. Listen, Blaise.” I looked at my watch, “it’s almost One and I have to get going.” I stood and slipped my jacket on. “My treat?” I said and grabbed the bill. He looked stunned, frozen. When I walked to the register to pay, he snatched up his blazer and ran up to me. I studied a picture of a cat taped to the counter with the caption “You gotta be kitten me!” That’s a nice detail. You need more of these to bring your setting to life. “Can I see you again?” I pocketed my change and turned to him. “I… don’t think so.” Stunned look again. “You’re a sweet guy, really but…” I shook my head. “Look, I’m sorry. I should give it to you straight.” The the girl behind the register stood playing with her fingernails, mouth slightly agape, listening. I tugged his sleeve and led him outside. The spring air was fresh, sweet. “The date started nice, but I’m just not feeling it. I’ve dated guys a lot like you and I know how this ends. I’m cutting to the chase and saving us both a couple of miserable months.” We’re three quarters through this story and absolutely nothing has happened. In your first line you told us the protag was on a bad date and that they weren’t going to see the other person again. This is still the case. “It’s the numbers thing.” He said. “No. Well, yes, but not just that. The whole thing started to feel off while we talked, and I’m going to listen to that little voice for once.” Ok so we have tiny moment of personal growth for the protag, but it doesn’t really matter because it was clear they were always going to make this decision. “But all the signs were there.” “Blaise. Stop listening to,” I made air quotes, “signs and portents and just be yourself okay? If you like numerology that’s great, find someone who’s into it.” “Wait!” He cried, and glanced at his watch. “Come with me!” Just as I’m about to give up again we have some action! Hooray! This should have happened in para 3. He grabbed my arm. I didn’t move. I looked at his hand, looked back to him. “Sorry,” he said and let go. “But please, just come with me to the gas station.” “What? Why?” “I want to try something. If you come with me, I swear I’ll leave you alone.” “Fine,” I said and followed. He walked quickly, and glanced at his watch. I felt stupid. “What are we doing?” “An experiment.” I sighed. We walked to the corner Sunoco and went inside, a bell jingling as we entered the small storefront stuffed with junk food, auto liquids, and day old hotdogs on rotating racks. He grabbed two daily lottery forms, filled one out with 1111 and handed me the other. “Any four numbers you want, but hurry.” “Oh for…” I muttered but filled in a random 9578, mostly to make this whole thing end faster. “There. That’s all I wanted.” He tucked his newly printed ticket in a pocket, but not before pointing out that it had been sold at 1:11pm. I snatched my ticket and left as quickly as I could. # Later that night I was shopping and trying to decide on pasta when my phone chimed. It was a text from Blaise. It read, “Check the numbers” with a smiley face. “Oh my god, really?” I said and made my way to the lottery counter. Tonight’s numbers were on a bright, red LED. Pick four: 6-3-1-1, it proclaimed. I scoffed, and checked the winnings chart. Blaise had won $11. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” I muttered and deleted his number. Basically anything would have been more satisfying than this ending. The joke is terrible. I wish he’d turned out to be a wizard and wins the lottery and now he’s a gazillionaire and the protag has to feel bad for being all judgy and not believing him. The problem with this story is nothing happens, nothing changes, no one learns anything or really does anything apart from buy a lottery ticket and not win (yes yes not all stories have to have a traditional arc in order to be good but it’s not like this one had anything else going on is it, hmmm?). There’s very little characterisation and almost no emotion from the protag apart from saying “umm” a lot. The ingredients you have assembled are not bad. You have a nonplussed protag, crazy numerology guy, a date and the suspense of waiting to find out if you’ve got a winning ticket. You could do good things with these, but you’ve got to take the protag on some sort of journey so that as a reader you want to get to the end to find out what happens. Night Shift by Djeser First thought: Ok this is weird. I like the vivid imagery though. Second thought: Wtf is going on, is this some last minute ramble about nothing? Final thought: Woah that was cool. I wasn’t sure where you were going with this but somehow by the end it all works beautifully. I read it twice, just because I wanted to enjoy the imagery a second time. Well done. The Night Cousin by Antivehicular This is weird and creepy, in a good way. I like it, but I don’t love it. I’m not really feeling the protag, so I don’t feel invested in whether they escape or not. I think the weakest point is the decision to turn and run. Seeing her parents hideously sewn together is a good reason for a normal person to run away, but you’ve established that your protag’s not normal - the violence of the kidnap implies they were expecting something pretty hosed up - so this felt a bit like “and then she changed her mind and ran away the end.” Barbara's Morning Commute by onsetOutsider What is this ? Ugh, alright, something helpful… Hmmm… This would have worked better if you had better characterised Barbara. At the moment she’s just an outline of a person - you needed to tell us about what she wanted and who she is. If cats don’t go to heaven, then what’s the point? by Flerp This is let down in the first third by the lack of emotion from the protag. He doesn't seem particularly upset about his cat's death and his comment that he'd give up his not-very-nice mother is way too off-hand. The witch also agrees to bring that cat back too easily, so the whole thing felt a bit flat. I agree with you that cats are great though.
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Mar 19, 2019 09:19
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In,  , and flash.
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Mar 19, 2019 11:37
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 Fungusbrawl judgementPour out a 40 of fungus liquor for the 14000 words these lunatics squeezed out for our delectation, then take a sip and savour its lightly hallucinogenic bitterness as you ponder that they were basically all very good. There's nothing much to choose in terms of prose quality between the two, so unfortunately for the loser we are gonna have to go on story structure and how the pieces Worked. Muffin's had a story where the female protag chased their young female protege until she ran up against the BIG SCIENCE FICTION IDEA and then did the SCIENCE THING that made the story end. Blowout's, by contrast, uh, did the same. Hm. I'm being unnecessarily reductive, but there are some lols to be garnered from the similarities. In fact they were both very different stories - Muffin's hummed with Big Phalloides Energy from the first word and managed some really solid funguspunk tension, particularly in the malevolence of the sun and the intensity of the protag's relationship with her ellie-from-the-last-of-us standin. Blowout's was much (much!) more leisurely and let us know all about the characters, and the environment, and how the characters kicked back in the environment, before getting going. The mushroom world were equally well-evoked with some genuinely singing prose, but I have to say that I cared more about Muffin's world because of the nice sociological world-building and the sense of consequences; Blowout told us about the consequences in hers, then handwaved them in a few paragraphs rather than having them impact the characters - the protag gets fungusified but it's actually hella sweet and nbd. Muffin's protag is also magically healed (seriously, did you compare notes) but I was way more concerned for her. Against that, I loved the wide screen baroque idea of Blowout's Haloesque fungus sentinel worlds more than Muffin's science experiment gone wrong, and I would absolutely read a book where fungal crusaders dance among the stars, protecting the galaxy with a sitting here approved benign mycelial web. But that's not this story, is it? in this story the fungal crusaders advance on a base full of terrified civilians to (presumably) subsume them into a borg-esque hivemind. The story ends abruptly because if it didn't it would turn into a horror movie. Muffin's ending was in some ways also clumsy, with a Star trek 2 style wave of Good Mushrooms sweeping the globe after Magic Science Butan gets pressed, but it doesn't leave the actually interesting/horrifying part outside the story. You can imagine what the characters might do, and it's not as interesting as what just happened, so it's ok to leave that bit untold. So with Muffin's we have a solidly focused slab of funguspunk with some solidly pulpy goals and good words, that ends in an artless first draft kind of way but it's relatively easy to see how it could be smoothed out (oh, and I'm really not convinced by Dr Horrifying McMonster M.D., but i guess that's fixable too) With Blowouts we have around twice the words and a leisurely introduction to life in a tourist town, a bunch of lightly sketched characters, a genuinely beautiful environment and a cool sci fi premise that ends about three minutes before the actual drama happens. Victory: Muffin.
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Mar 19, 2019 11:57
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In, flash.
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Mar 19, 2019 11:59
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Thanks for the crits, peeps, especially Joruichi for the details. Good feedback. Also, I will probably regret this since I don't really have much time this week, but I can't say no to that prompt, so I am In like Flynn.
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Mar 19, 2019 13:48
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In
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Mar 19, 2019 14:12
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Doctor Zero posted:Thanks for the crits, peeps, especially Joruichi Who the fukc is Joruichi?
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Mar 19, 2019 19:54
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Barnaby Profane posted:In, flash. Your protagonist would sooner be dead than unfashionable. Baneling Butts posted:In, In your story, nobody draws a knife or a gun. Nobody even makes a fist. No weapons. sebmojo posted:In, flash Your protagonist could cuss the blue out of the sky. Staggy posted:In, flash. Your story takes place entirely on a riverboat.
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Mar 19, 2019 20:17
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In with a flash.
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Mar 19, 2019 22:41
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Yoruichi posted:Who the fukc is Joruichi? It's my Swedish accent.  (seriously I don't know why the gently caress I typed that sorry.)
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Mar 19, 2019 22:55
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Viscardus posted:In with a flash. Your story must be set in or clearly inspired by the building of the Manchurian railway.
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Mar 19, 2019 23:36
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In flash me bigboi
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Mar 19, 2019 23:40
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SlipUp posted:In flash me bigboi In your story, there are no remaining landmasses.
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Mar 19, 2019 23:45
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In with a flash pleas
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Mar 20, 2019 02:17
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apophenium posted:In with a flash pleas Tell me about your Level 20 Paladin.
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Mar 20, 2019 02:39
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in / flash
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Mar 20, 2019 03:18
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The Saddest Rhino posted:in / flash None of your characters can be human.
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Mar 20, 2019 04:09
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Captain_Person posted:In plus a You're better than this! There's only room for one inveterate Failure Captain in this dome, and that's me. Brawl me.
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Mar 20, 2019 09:24
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cptn_dr posted:You're better than this! There's only room for one inveterate Failure Captain in this dome, and that's me. Lowtax has his spine money. I'll have your blood. You're on.
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Mar 20, 2019 10:18
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Sebmojo won his Technically Correct brawl through, technically, being the only entrant
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Mar 20, 2019 10:28
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Obliterati posted:Sebmojo won his Technically Correct brawl through, technically, being the only entrant shambam entered, he just posted a whiny excuse rather than a story
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Mar 20, 2019 10:37
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sebmojo posted:shambam entered, he just posted a whiny excuse rather than a story Technically it wasn't a story
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Mar 20, 2019 10:46
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cptn_dr posted:You're better than this! There's only room for one inveterate Failure Captain in this dome, and that's me. Captain_Person posted:Lowtax has his spine money. I'll have your blood. Oh captain, my captain, I'm afraid this prompt is gonna be rough sailing. Before the end of the month, PST, you two will have to deliver A steampunk story, but not, and let me stress this, not garbage. Gimme a tale about the people the industrial revolution swept aside, the anxiety of men forced to compete with machine, the runaway ambition of a capitalist clockwork.
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Mar 20, 2019 11:13
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Eh, flash me
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Mar 20, 2019 14:53
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CascadeBeta posted:Eh, flash me
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Mar 20, 2019 18:51
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MuffOut brawl crits I enjoyed reading both of these, full stop. aaaaaaah I kept getting interrupted while trying to get my thoughts together, so have some lists of disjointed critique. Muffin Pros:
Cons:
Blowout Pros:
Cons:
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Mar 21, 2019 02:11
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Well, it's been about three and a half years since my last rumble in the Thunderdome, but I'd say it's about time to get, as the kids say, "back on my bullshit." Let's see if you folks have gotten any better. In.
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Mar 21, 2019 19:27
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 19:12 |
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ThirdEmperor posted:Oh captain, my captain, I'm afraid this prompt is gonna be rough sailing. The first project we ever worked on together, back in the wasted mists of our teenage years, was lovely steampunk. It's fitting then, that the one which tears us apart in blood and oil is also steampunk.
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Mar 21, 2019 19:38
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