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Groundhogs, Reconsidered 573 words It is 6:07 A.M, and Silias Marigold is reading. She doesn't remember the title of the work in question, a slim blue volume with yellowed pages and a frayed spine. The words on the page are describing a village. Her eyes glaze over. In between the line-by-line scans to establish textual integrity, she notices a typo. Eʌǝɹʎʇɥıng. She frowns. Given the nature of the source text, the printing should be clean. She reads it again. A voice calls out from somewhere. “Hi!” Startled, she turns around. The voice in question belongs to a little girl. She smiles brightly at Silias, revealing gaps where her baby teeth have fallen out. Her white dress is touching the muddy floor, but she either doesn't notice or doesn't care. her white dress is touching the muddy floor. Silias looks around. The reading room with its endless shelves of books is gone. She is standing in a forest, early morning light seeps sleepily through the canopy. She does a reality check, keeping in mind the containment rituals. Everything is normal. "So I'm not dreaming." She says. The girl laughs "No silly! You're here with me." "Where is here in that case?" Silias says, fighting the rising tide of panic clawing its way up her throat. The concept immersion readers should have prevented her from going this deep into the text. She doesn't hear any alarms. [¡]She doesn't hear any alarms[/i]. Something is wrong. Per her place in the source text, she should be in the middle of a village, but the descriptions don't match. She checks her conceptual manifold. Operating as intended. The girl walks up and takes her hand. The warmth of skin on skin feeds back through her. "Wanna collect some leaves?" She feels herself becoming fainter. Whatever this is, she can no longer fight it. Her thoughts turn to Maria. Does she know she's gone? Is she trying to pull her out of the place she's in? She looks down at the little girl tugging gently at her hands. "C'mon. It'll be an adventure!" The girl looks up at her with eyes that seem too old for her face, and Silias struggles to look away. They walk off deeper into the forest, the faint swish of leaves playing them a coda. *** Her thoughts turn to Maria It is 10:07AM and Maria Sepulvedas is reading. The book is red and thick, Silias's name on the spine in faded gold letters. Her eyelids are heavy, and two empty pots of coffee sit next to her. She focuses on Silias. The way she laughs, the way she chews her hair, the way her eyes flash with mischief. The description must be true to be real. A hand on her shoulder, too heavy to be Silias's. She turns to find a lexicomancer staring up at her with its myriad of eyes. "It's been four hours. She's gone." Maria shakes her head, turning back to her book, not reading now, just hoping. The words on the page swim in front of her as tears run quietly down her face. A flash of something in her mind's eye. A little girl in a white dress, walking through a forest. The girl turns to face her, looking at her with Silias's face and impossibly old eyes. She smiles. As Maria moves to close the book, she pauses. Something is stuck between the pages. A single red leaf, the color of sunset.
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Jan 18, 2021 02:54
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And Talking Trees, and Leagues of Grass 899 words Among the Xlati clans, it's the women who have the biggest swinging cocks. I've been traveling among them for two months, doing background work on the unity movement, and, well, when in Rome, come prepared for an orgy. So I've got a state-of-the-art nineteen-inch wanger installed, nanofiber infiltrates running straight to my spine, connected straight into my sensorium, deep inside some smiling clan cyclejock. The brass balls in the calfskin sack at the base sound like cymbals when they slam together. It's an extra-special orgy, not the half-hearted affairs they have most days under the yurtshade between the twilight hours of sleep. This is the marriage feast, cactusflesh and tequila, the merger of clans Snake, Eagle, and Cactus into a continent-shaking army. A horde, barbarians of course: they still burn carbon in their chromed cycles. Hyperefficient steamtrapping engines, but barbaric still. Nobody to stop them in the equatorial badlands, those parts of the world that are uninhabitable but not uninhabited. Thousands strong, armed and dangerous, outnumbering any syndicate's security. And now, finally, united behind Chief Executive Chalixo Bonestallion. He's been in charge for three hours. He smiles, nods, waves to the frenzied celebratory rogering. Then blood spews from his mouth and he falls over, stabbed in the base of the skull by a two-foot razorclad cyberphallus. There's nobody at the other end of it, the nabofiber tendrils all cauterized off. There's no such thing as a police syndicate. But my editor keeps telling me I ought to be in one anyway. "Arsenic Scorpio," he says, "With your natural viciousness and talent for stumbling across corpses, you'd be a perfect detective." So I kicked him in the shin, stole his creditlink, and went south to cover this story. Among the Xlati clans it's the women who have the big swinging cocks. So they're the suspects. The men generally don't remove what nature gave them, and going double-decker is considered gauche. They still get scanned for interface tech and telltale scars. The assassin either they had a spare or they got out quickly; nobody comes up short at the lineup. Scouts ride out to round up anyone fleeing on foot. There's a challenge to the succession, with Chalixo's oldest son and his ops officer both wanting to take his place. So while half those gathered investigate, the other half negotiate the terms of challenge, provisional neither of them ends up guilty. Snake clan security finds something, a bald woman buried shallow in the dry turf a few hundred yards downwind of the latrines. She's minus-cyberdong, so either the culprit or another victim. The forensic team gets to work, breaking her down and extracting the tech. You don't waste anything in the dead zone, not tech and not fertilizer either. CE Bonestallion is already composting, his headware in escrow for the challenge winner. Nobody claims her. Techbois scramble over the encryption on her chips. Well, when in Rome, dig up a cadaver to put it on trial. They announce the challenge before there's any progress on the decrypt. A race. Could have figured. This camp was done. The challengers set out at dawn, with the rest of us following after the morning half-sleep. You survive the dead zone by constantly moving. The clans are each divided in three. There's the planters, chasing right behind the hurricanes to deliver fertilizer and genmod seeds for quick grasses and succulents. And there's the harvesters,the group I'm with, following a few weeks behind to reap before the mudhole dries out. Then there are the traders, carrying the products of the specialty cactoids north and south to barter for new seed and tech. So I'm riding in a techboi's sidecar, cyberjunk way out of place, strapped down by the seatbelt across the dead highways of what used to be Central America. Hung over, since it takes growing up here to really get the knack of sleeping sober in the evening heat, and jostling constantly over unmaintained asphalt. The ride is long, and unpleasant. But it finishes gloriously. I arrived in the first camp near the end. Here I see the deadlands in bloom by dronelight above,cactus flowers making the dusty air sweet and more than a bit narcotic. I watch as taps are applied for water and for the product. It's work, but it feels more like celebration than the night before. Bonestallion junior won the race and was welcomed into the triumverate marriage, now led by the Eagle clan chieftess. And since in the Xlati clans the women have the biggest swinging cocks, she's already gearing up for the big ride north, for war, ready to shift the balance and win land and treasure. The hackers got their answers, too. Or some of them. It was old code, set to settle an old grudge. The poor dead girl had no idea what was going to happen when her cybertool reconfigured to combat mode. It still isn't clear who buried her, and fertilizer waste is treated more seriously than murder itself here. I suspect someone from up north had a hand, trying to delay things with whatever tools they could find. Didn't work, if anything the horde is moving north sooner now. I'll be riding along with them at least to the disputed zone. When in Rome, raise legions to go sack Carthage. And let's all hope Carthage is Syndarch Glennson rather than Academician Pollard.
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Jan 18, 2021 04:00
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Hummingbird Wish Me Luck Words: 900 Rudy was watching a hummingbird at his balcony feeder when the paramedics came. He saw them, not from the balcony, but inside, on a wingback chair he dragged across the room. He had been afraid, lately, to go out onto the balcony, out into the world. He did not wonder who they came for, as he heard them stomp up the stairs to the landing in front of his apartment. The only other apartment on the second floor was his neighbor, Jim, a man in his early 60s. He heard the knocks on Jim’s door, and they did not wait for an answer as they let themselves in. The door had been unlocked, which was unlike Jim, who always had to unchain his door, even before the pandemic. Rudy felt scared. They lived in a four-plex, though they were responsible for the bulk of the communal chores, Jim himself doing more than Rudy. They took turns taking the dumpsters to the curb, watering the plants, or changing foyer lightbulbs. While Rudy was annoyed that the other tenants were unreliable, Jim did not mind. Kept him busy, Jim had told Rudy once. Because he did not really want to do the chores, Rudy created a system for himself to be of help. Rudy would always be on the lookout for when Jim accidentally left his car on the street sweeping side. That he could sometimes remind Jim to avoid a $75 ticket, he felt absolved. Unmoved from his chair, Rudy heard the wheeling of the gurney out onto the landing, and the wheezing moans of discomfort each step the stretcher descended. By the time they had gotten to the walk, and were heading towards the ambulance, the hummingbird had gone, and soon Rudy was left in his chair, looking at nothing. Jim will be fine, he thought to himself. Days passed, and Rudy needed to move his car off the street sweeping side. A task he did anxiously, and only in the late hours. On his way back inside, he noticed Jim’s car had still not been moved, but thought surely in the morning Jim would move it before street sweeping. The morning came, and Rudy could see the blue sedan from his window. Nervously, he double layered his mask and stepped out onto the apartment landing. There was no answer to his knocks, and he watched the parking enforcement write a ticket that morning. After that, Rudy also grew sick, and more tickets piled up and hummingbirds flitted about a bone-dry feeder. He felt powerless to refill it, despite the simplicity; four parts water, one part sugar. The feeder had been a gift from his late parents, and a source of minor guilt that he had never set it up and taken photos for them before they passed. Of all the things he felt he had not done enough in their later years, the hummingbird feeder was low on the list, but latent, nonetheless. The only task he felt energy to do was make tea and drink it in his chair. One morning, Jim’s car was gone, though he had heard no sound from his neighbor’s apartment. Jim was gone, and so were the hummingbirds. That the hummingbirds no longer came pained him, but they appeared to finally learn their vessel would not be refilled. The only thing Rudy could do now was make tea and sit in the sun. A method Jim had taught him, was to pour the hot water into the mug first, then sugar to drop the temperature just enough, so when the tea was added next it would not scorch out the flavors or produce any bitter notes. Rudy dropped the sugar into the mug, and then went rooting in his tea tin for the right bag. He was prone to ripping open his boxes of tea and dumping the unmarked sachets into his metal tin. He took a handful of bags and brought them to his nose, to bloodhound out the right flavor. Each one he brought to his nose gave him nothing. Grabbing the entire tin, he buried his nose into the pile and took a deep sniff. Nothing differentiated them from each other, and nothing differentiated them from his own fingers. He let them fall from his hands, and he took a sip of his hot sugar water. Again nothing. He spooned more sugar into the cup, tasted, and continued spoon after spoon. He laughed to himself. He had practically made nectar, but it could not convince his tongue that this was anything but hot water. But the thought struck him, that he was able to do at least one thing still. Retrieving the feeder from the balcony, he poured what would have been his tea into the glass bulb. Returning the feeder upon its hook, Rudy fled inside, slamming the door behind him. He stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do next, and felt foolish standing, looking through the door at the lonely feeder. Exhausted, Rudy sank into his wingback chair and wrapped the blanket around him tighter. The sun shining through the glass warmed him, and a deep breath escaped his lungs. He waited, for what felt like hours, but a hummingbird did not come. As his eyes began to close, an emerald and ruby dart zipped by. Rudy smiled, and drifted off.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:50
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Epistle of Ixion Jr III to the Idiots 830 words Okay so we need to get some things straight about us centaurs. First, the ‘toilet’ issue. Fact is horses just do it where they like, and no one says boo to them. Right? They’re horses, they don’t understand human speech. We, by contrast, are civilised motherfuckers, just extremely urbane and civilised and we always have a designated spot, or ‘zone’ where we agree to do our business and it all works out fine. Next topic. I’m a centaur and, frankly, I like to drink. There’s nothing wrong with that, we all enjoy a drink from time to time! It’s true that my ancestor Pholos hosted Hercules while he was hunting some oversized animal or other, and Pholos had a gigantic jar full of wine, just ridiculously oversized and brimming with strong wine, but that doesn’t indicate he had a problem. There are important economies of scale when it comes to earthenware containers. It’s also true that some of Pholos’ friends may have smelt the wine. It’s not a crime that we centaurs have a very good sense of smell. It’s just not! The fracas that followed when they came in to investigate the wine smell and perhaps have a small drink with their friend is regrettable: some have called it a brawl, or a ruckus, μᾰ́χη if you’re being exact, but look: things happen! We can’t go back in time and change those things, though if we were to work out how to do that then Hercules flexing his muscles and beating, brutally beating, a bunch of my ancestors to death is one bit of history I’d certainly consider tweaking. I can see the question you really want to ask though: did Hercules mean to stab Pholos, my great great uncle right in the rear end (the rear end!) with a poison arrow, killing him? The answer is, yes. Yes he did, because he was a dick. I hate that guy. Hercules, more like Dorkules in my view. Next topic. I say next topic but it’s actually a similar topic, also concerning everyone’s favourite bicep-brained fuckboy. You’ve heard of Nessos, lovely fellow, wise, long limbed, good at jumping low fences and running fast in a straight line. Picture him galloping across the grassed plain, and what does he see but Hercules and his new wife, standing by the river! Naturally he stops, we are a polite lot, and hearing that they need to cross he offers to give them a ride. Here’s where my story, also known as the true and accurate story, diverges from what you might call the ‘party line’. Nessos allegedly took advantage of this lady in midstream, which, I don’t need to tell you, is just extremely impractical because of the way we’re put together. Never happened. You try reaching back while you’re tiptoeing in mid-stream on slippery stones! Ridiculous. What did happen is our friend with the poison arrows whipped them out and let fly and killed poor old Nessos, for reasons that are unclear. I say that, but you can tell from my face I think it’s very clear what happened. Fact is, chicks dig horses. We’re big, we’re muscly, we can run really fast in a straight line. Plus the, you know, dimension factor. It’s not even that surprising when you think about it. So what happened is Hercules saw his lady making a choice he didn’t approve of, and rather than using words, or maybe considering changing his own behaviour, he jumped straight to poison arrows. Am I even sure he was aiming at Nessos rather than, say, his new wife? No. No, I’m not. It’s true that Nessos did suggest using his own poisonous deathblood as some kind of smeary coat-borne love ointment, and it’s also true that Hercules died of this, but come now, Nessos didn’t start the poison fight he just finished it. Anyway they’re all long dead now and Hercules is godding it up on Mount Olympus (with another lady, I note, just in passing) so I suppose it’s poisonous water under the murder bridge. Next topic. I’ve been skirting around it, but the thing that really gets my mane shaking is the number of small moving animals you humans have. There’s dogs, there’s cats, there’s, I don’t know, mice? Marsupials? Scuttling all over the place. It’s scary and it’s dumb and it has to stop. Alright? I don’t want to have to take steps. I really don’t, they scare me and I don’t want to step on them. Just, do something. Get rid of them. Poison them, that’s what you guys are good at, isn’t it? Just grab them and inject them with some kind of poison. Not worried about the details. I’m big picture. I’m big, anyway. Tall at the shoulder. I wanna go for a run, tired of talking to you. If you need me I’ll be over there, under the tree or maybe up the hill somewhere.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:56
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Advice to a Young Traveler 886 words If you fall in the badlands, you die -- alone and forever. The holdouts doesn't send retrieval teams out for travelers, and professional retrievers are few and expensive; unless you've got deep-pocketed family, nobody's going to be coming for your core, and everyone knows it. Walking the badlands is a declaration of suicide clearer than the official ones, with less paperwork. If you want to go out there for something besides death, you have to be ready. The first step is your research, as much as you can manage. When I did it, I had a few months of satellite maps, along with my target's coordinates. It's the one perk of badlands retrieval: no scavengers, so bodies stay where they fall, as long as the salt pan holds up. I spent months with the satellite data, figuring out where the salt was thinning out and plotting the least treacherous path I could. It takes time, but more research means a faster route and fewer leaps of faith. If you fall in the badlands, you die, so don't take any more chances than you have to. Look, before we go any further -- I can teach you, but I'm not a professional, and I'm not going to guide you out there. All right? I put in my time, I made my one lucky run, and that's it for me. I can patch into your drone, but I'm staying right where I am. Anyway, what you've got to do is find a slow, steady path. I found one that got me a day's walk out of Holdout 9 before I spotted my first mud pit. What you want to do is have your drone run surveillance, look for fresh pits and thin salt, and walk as lightly as you can. Take enough rations for detours, and then some more; if you fall, you die, but at least you won't die starving. I starved to death once, in one of my first few incarnations -- exposure's a better way to go, trust me. Once you're heading into the hills, that's when things get tricky. It's hard to tell the difference between salt and hill-glass unless the sun's high; most of the glass can take your weight, but not all, and it's slick as anything. The most dangerous part is the feeling the hills give you, though. It might be altitude, it might be something in the air, but the further you get into the hills and away from the holdouts, the nicer it feels. You start to feel like you could live out there, and and you start seeing fish swimming in the glassed-in pools, waiting for your hook. It's all a mirage. A doctor explained it to me once -- something about the pleasure centers, hungry for novelty, telling you you're having an "adventure." You're not. You'll die. My target made it two days into the hills. I still don't know what he was trying to do. Some of our friends said he was ready for real death, but I don't believe him; I know he wasn't happy, but I don't think he'd wanted an end. I think he was trying to reach another holdout. We'd had a dozen incarnations each at Holdout 9, and I think he was just... no, dammit, I'm not rambling, I'm getting to my point. I was a few hours away from him when I let my mind wander, trying to figure out why he'd done it, and that's when my foot hit the glass and slid downhill. The cliff was sheer, and I couldn't get my footing before there was no ground under me; my drone pinwheeled through the air, trying to catch me, claws grabbing and ripping through my shirt. I'd fallen. I want to say it was skill that saved me, but I'll be honest: it was luck. My drone slowed me down, and the glass I landed on was thick enough to catch me. If I'd panicked, though, I'd have been done for, so maybe there's a little skill, or just a calm mind. If you fall in the badlands, you die -- but not every stumble is a fall. I found my target on a patch of salt flat, waist-deep in mud, core protruding from his forehead. If you're pulling a core, tug hard; they're sturdy, and they're stuck in pretty tight. Once I had his core clear, I packed it up in my drone and sent it on to Holdout 16 for resurrection. I don't know what he wanted, but I knew he didn't want to be back at 9, and I owed him a new start. I loved him once. But I guess that goes without saying, huh? I decided I owed myself a new start, too. Crossing the flats droneless is suicide, but I made it here to 21 -- maybe skill, maybe luck. Maybe the kind of thing you can do when you stop caring. I figure it doesn't matter anymore. I'll be honest with you, kid; you have to be crazy to do this. If you fall in the badlands, you die, alone and forever. But if there's something out there for you, and you care about coming back, I'll do what I can.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:15
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Redacted
sparksbloom fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2021 07:58
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e: snip
Obliterati fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Feb 3, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 08:42
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Submissions are closing... just as soon as whoever is blocking the door comes inside... Any time now...
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Jan 18, 2021 10:51
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My Favorite Mistake 899 words Larry made his billions by mistakenly putting his entire life savings into the wrong stock, which Forbes had described as “the most boring way to get rich.” He vowed to make up for it by using his fortune to make the world a more interesting place. He invested in the eccentric, his portfolio a menagerie of strange and impractical: a project determined to alter the trajectory of the current timeline by raising and releasing swarms of butterflies, a metamaterial so fragile it would shatter if gazed upon, a fruit so delicious it had spurred a man into dedicating his life to bringing it to life though he only tasted it in a dream. The more far fetched the premise, the greater Larry’ desire to invest in it. This is how he came to be covered head to toe in a crisp jumpsuit, nitrile gloves, and comically large safety goggles standing next to a vat of milky goo in the converted-hangar labs of Centaurs Inc. Dr. Lemonz rolled out a tall cart with a CRT television strapped to the top. Three wheels squeaked while the fourth simply spun in every direction at once on the long journey across the expanse of concrete. He stopped in front of Larry and the three other investors, smiled, and pushed the instructional video into the VCR. It clicked a few times then whined as it spun up and spit a magenta image onto the screen. “GREETINGS!” said a man who walked into frame. The gathered VIPs covered their ears as the scientist mashed the volume down button, his Einsteinesque hair flapping on top of his head in rhythm to the man’s fingers smashing the VCR. “Centaurs!” the TV man continued at a more reasonable volume. “Fascinating, noble creatures.” The image starwiped to a field of Centaurs, some trotting around the perimeter, others engaged in spirited conversations. The screen flashed back the presenter who had been unceremoniously joined by a child. “Gee mister, centaurs are neat, but what about the other way?” said the boy. “You know, with the horse half on the top.” “Ha!” said the man. “The typical limitations of a child’s mind. Like our hard-working team at Centaurs Inc. hadn’t done that the minute they’d made the other kind.” The video showed a pair of human legs barely supporting the heft of a horse torso and head run into a fence. “Try harder.” The boy frowned. “Ok, well what about a human quarter on the top, then half horse middle, and a quarter human on the bottom?” “Pedestrian and unimaginative. Did it!” The video showed a man’s head look down at his hairy horse nipples, his blurred-out horse dong and his skinny little human calves and feet. “What about--” The man held up his hand. “Quiet, child. There’s nothing you can think of we haven’t already done and regretted. We ran out of ways to combine horse and human DNA, so we figured, heck! Why not let a professional have a go. And that seasoned geneticist is none other than Mother Nature herself.” The man walked up to a chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk. “With the backing of illustrious investors, we’ve devised a system where horse and human genes can be combined at random.” He drew some twirly figures that didn’t help Larry understand at all how it worked. “With the push of a button you have a complete 50-50 rearrangement of all 40,000 horse and human alleles without any a priori biases or hypotheses. Just pure, unadulterated centaur magic. And combined with our patented QuickDevo Hydrogel, they’re ready in just a few minutes, reminding us all that there are no such things as mistakes, only happy little accidents.” The man in the video walked back over to where he’d left the boy and held out a slice of apple on his open palm. The boy’s lips peeled back to reveal his large, flat teeth as he leaned forward and licked the apple from the man’s hand. The man winked, and the screen went dark.” Larry and the other investors applauded politely. “Who wants to be the first to push the button and develop their own, unique centaur?” Larry shrugged and sheepishly raised his hand. He stepped up to the big red button and pushed it, sending a jolt of electricity into the goo and triggering the DNA crossover. The pool bubbled and burped, and thirty seconds later a platform raised the dripping wet form of the nascent yet precocial horse-human hybrid into the air. She blinked her black horse eyes and scratched at her human nose with her hooves. Her small human heart pumped her horse blood to her horse muscles which rippled under her smooth human skin. The scientist studied the computer screen. “EEG reads human imagination, but a horse startle response. The scan indicates she’d have great balance, but be a terrible procrastinator and day dreamer.” Larry looked into her horse eyes and felt a vulnerable soul. He wanted to protect her, to comfort her. He reached out to offer her his hand, but clumsily knocked the button pedestal into the pool. The sudden motion spooked her, and she jumped out and ran across the hangar on two legs, swatting at the other scientists with her hooved arms. She winnied and bucked past the guards and ran for the open hangar door to freedom.
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Jan 18, 2021 11:01
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 Week 441 Results Starting at the bottom end, earning a special new avatar is Gorka, who wrote an unsatisfying opening to a longer story, and failed to effectively use repetition. Joining them with DMs are Magic Cactus, who also wrote what felt like a story fragment with not enough character, and Brotherly, who fell flat on characterisation and repetition. Special prizes go to Sebmojo, who gets an HM for making the best use of repetition of the week. Simply Simon would otherwise have DM'd, but is saved from this by their effective use of repetition. Well done. And onto our podium: Sparksbloom and SurruptitiousMuffin get HMs. Sparksbloom wrote a touching slice of life story that succeeded at what it set out to do. Muffin, please know that I hated your story for reasons that are explained in my crit, but despite this I cannot deny that it is objectively a very clever piece of writing. Standing on the top of the podium, with a story that all the judges agreed was weird and interesting and used repetition to good effect, is Obliterati. Please accept this oversized rosette and bottle of champagne, you sexy-accent-having bastard. 
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Jan 19, 2021 06:02
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Week 441 Crits This is sweet despite being quite silly. The hyperbolic style works insofar as it illustrates how angst-filled the protagonist is, but ultimately I think it lets the story down, because instead of real details about this woman and the protag’s feelings for her, we’ve got bland generalisations, e.g. about how great she smells. I think if you swapped out generic descriptions (e.g. “she is pure”) for something specific to this woman then this could be pretty good. How well did you use repetition? Pretty well. The switch from “you won’t, you won’t,” to “will you?” in the final line and the “you will” in the title all tie together nicely. But, I think “you won’t” is repeated too many times - it would have had more impact if used less often and interspersed with more details of the scene and the characters. 5/10 The Three Steps of the Giant by Tree Bucket You have a tense shift which makes your opening confusing. The opening sentence reads to me like it’s supposed to mean, “Rob had only been 17 when the drought broke, but he still remembered it.” Then the “had” at the start of the second paragraph makes it sound like this is a flashback, but then you shift into present tense. After this confusing start I struggled to work out exactly what was happening. I thought Rob was watching the giant slowly approach from a distance, but then it seems he’s right under its feet, for unclear reasons. And then the giant starts doing something unusual, but again I wasn’t clear what, as all its actions seem to involve just lumbering around. Then a robot sticks its head out and says, hey kid jump in, and he does? The only motive you offer for this is that he’s a teenager, which seems a bit thin. I think you could have something cool here - the image of the giant slowly pulverising the landscape is great - but this needs a serious edit for sense. Did you use repetition effectively? No. You just stated that he was 17, twice, when in fact the prompt required a minimum of 3 repetitions. 4/10 Smooth Moon by Phiz Kalifa Three Houstons and a mad scientist flatten the moon's surface with a steamroller. The Houstons, not understanding the task, initially resist, and then in their anxiety launch into moon-smoothing with excessive enthusiasm. Great use of flash-gif here. This story is silly and funny. I lol'd at the “pros: smooth moon” slide show. Bits of it don't make a lot of sense, and it needed another edit - you've got a jarring POV shift when describing the Houstons, for example, and why on earth aren't your paragraphs separated. But overall this was mad and fun. Did you use repetition effectively? Not really. “Smooth moon” is repeated through the story, which is funny because it's a funny pair of words to say, but it doesn't add anything beyond that. 5/10 The Doom Vat by brotherly This should have been good (you’ve got lots of good wizardly stuff going on) but it isn’t, because you don’t tell us who the the protagonist is or what they want, making it impossible for me to care about whether they get the doom vat to work or not. It’s very unclear what’s going on at the ending - have they gone insane or were they trying to give themselves pustules? Did you use repetition effectively? No. I think maybe you were trying to show the same scene (the protag trying and failing to get the doom vat to work) over and over? But I didn’t get a strong sense from the story that the same thing kept happening, so this didn’t really work for me. 4/10 Mr Hands But Make It Actual This Time by SurreptitiousMuffin On my first read through I didn’t understand this at all. After my second read, I decided this lack of comprehension stemmed from an attempt by my brain to sheild me from the most obvious interpretation, which is that this is a story about someone having terrifying hallucinations, and then setting themself and their horse on fire, causing their death and loving up the horse, which is absolutely horrifying. So, thanks for that. :frowny face: Call me simple but for this to work for me I needed a bit more character meat to make me feel feelings about what was happening to the protag. “Chestnut A Go Go” is an A+ racehorse name though. Did you use repetition effectively? Yes. The repetition of “I am a man / it is a horse” works well within the madness of the piece, and is not overused. 6.5/10 Empty by flerp Aww, bless. I want to give your poor protag a hug, and I’m glad they’ve got a nice dog to give them dog hugs. I like that this is just describes a simple moment, and doesn’t try to overcomplicate things with any suggestion that they might get back together. Did you use repetition effectively? I guess the recurring image of the empty bed was your repeated thing? This is good, but didn’t feel like a strong part of the piece. 6.5/10 Man Plans; by Nae Why is there a semi-colon in your title? I’m afraid I don’t really get this. What’s going on? What is the protag doing, and why do they kill themselves? Are the other characters frog people or is this a delusion on the part of the protag? The whole picking tiles thing didn’t feel connected to anything. Did you use repetition effectively. No, you don’t seem to have used it at all. You get four out of ten because even though I didn’t get this at least the prose is good. 4/10 Chosen by Gorka The prose here is fine but this just feels like the introduction to a longer tale. It’s not bad as a starting point, but not satisfying as a short story. Did you use repetition effectively? No. 4/10 Groundhogs, Reconsidered by Magic Cactus This is interesting, but it feels like a fragment from a longer story. It’s quite sad, but we don’t find out much about these characters or their relationship, so I didn’t really get pulled into the emotion of the story. I think you also needed to give more context for Silias getting pulled into the book. Not an explanation of how it works; more like, why her, why now? Did you use repetition effectively? Yes, I thought the “... was reading,” worked well. However, you only managed two repetitions, where the prompt called for at least three. 4/10 And Talking Trees, and Leagues of Grass by Thranguy Mad Max meets cyber Did you use repetition effectively? Yes, because among the Xlati clans it's the women who have the big swinging cocks. 6/10 Hummingbird Wish Me Luck by Noah This is nicely written insight into someone dealing with a difficult situation. I would have liked a bit more detail about Rudy though, so I could be clearer about what sort of person I was picturing. Is he old or young, for example? I assume his loss of smell is a COVID-19 reference, but without this background knowledge that wouldn’t have made a whole lot of sense. Did you use repetition effectively? The recurring image of the hummingbirds was nice, but if I hadn’t been looking for examples of repetition this wouldn’t have stood out to me. 6/10 Epistle of Ixion Jr III to the Idiots by sebmojo Well done opening with a poo joke, a bold play. Centaurs could just use toilets though, couldn’t they? Maybe specially designed extra-large ones, but still, they’d just have to back up to it. Horses can hold on if they want to, it’s not like they just poo poo involuntarily. Lots of them don’t like pissing on concrete for e.g. (they prefer long grass so it doesn’t splash onto their legs). Ok wow you really did go full horse with this one. I lol’d. Good job. Did you use repetition effectively? Yes, very much so. The “next topic” bit gives structure and rhythm to the piece, as well as adding characterisation. 6/10 Advice to a Young Traveler by Antivehicular Someone goes on a dangerous mission into the badlands to retrieve the core of a dead ex-lover, so that that person can be reincarnated. Or rather, someone is telling someone else about this, because the listener is contemplating a similar mission. I think the framing of having a narrator talking to someone else muddied this piece, and it would have been stronger if it had just focussed on the badlands action and the protag’s journey. Cool imagery though. I confess I was kinda waiting for the big-dick-swinging Amazons from Thranguy’s story to show up. Did you use repetition effectively? Yes. The repetition of ‘if you fall in the badlands, you die’ added a nice rhythm. 6/10 Peanut Butter Jelly Time by Sparksbloom Aww, this is sweet. I like the way you show how this father-daughter relationship both changes and doesn’t change over the years, just through these little snippets. Did you use repetition effectively? I think your repeated motif was the father’s insistence that he makes his sandwiches with jam and not jelly. I didn’t feel this added much to the piece, as, once we knew that this was a thing that this character did, we didn’t really need to keep being told about it. 7/10 How Yer Grampa Glaikit Beat Back The Beats by Obliterati Ha, this is cool. I like the vernacular - a risky play, but you pull it off. I love the image of this Weegie twitching with an uncontrollable beat as they desperately try to construct a stage before the beat drops and ends them. And then they drop the beat so hard it just rolls over them and on and on. I’m not sure this makes a lot of sense but I enjoyed the ride, and I dig the way the protag gives the middle finger to their fate and then is baffled when it works. Did you use repetition effectively? Yes. “Easy come, easy go,” is an effective repeated motif and gives the piece a nice rhythm. 8/10 My Favourite Mistake by crabrock I fear for the safety of your lab mice. Stallions don’t have nipples (a rarity amongst male mammals), and you missed an opportunity to say she “hoofed it” in your last paragraph. Did you use repetition effectively? Not really, except for the bit where the mad scientist is rattling off all the possible combinations they’ve tried. You get five because this was both delightful and horrifying, but the ending was a bit rushed. 5/10
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Jan 19, 2021 06:13
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THUNDERDOME WEEK 442: I GET KNOCKED DOWN BUT I GET UP AGAIN WITNESS ME, LOSERS OF THE DOME, AS I ASCEND THE BLOOD THRONE SO OFT-DENIED ME. YOU’RE NEVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN. YOU’RE NOT LAUGHING NOW, ARE YOU - well actually you should be, my story had laughs - BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW. THIS WEEK YOU SHALL PANDER TO ME. In your story, someone gets knocked down by something and gets back up again: they can get knocked down in the story or you can cold open on the linoleum floor or whatever, just give me someone knocked down who gets back up again. If you ask for a flashrule you will receive the something that knocked them down. Give me your wildest swing at it. No erotica, fanfic etc. Word limit: 800 words. If you have ever lost in the Dome, you may  for an extra 200 words. It’s time to get back up again.Signups close: Saturday 23rd Jan, 0900 UTC Deadline: Monday 25th Jan, 0900 UTC Judges:
Obliterati fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 19, 2021 16:13
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I'll judge
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Jan 19, 2021 16:18
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in
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Jan 19, 2021 16:39
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In, flash me
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Jan 19, 2021 16:40
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Staggy posted:In, flash me Someone gets knocked down by a feather.
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Jan 19, 2021 16:43
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In.
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Jan 19, 2021 16:55
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In
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Jan 19, 2021 17:59
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 Hey TD, guess what? Do you know what breaks a person? Not big things like war, or famine, or political strife. No, it’s the small things—the hot water heater going out in January, a couple extra inches of snow that falls right after you finish shoveling, a baked potato that’s not quite done in the center. It is the sum of weight of small injustices that crushes a soul. And the final straw that broke my back was receiving a 2020 losertar when I was CLEARLY the first loser of 2021. And thus I have turned heel. No more “your story was great, but…” crits. I’m going to tell you why you suck, and maybe your shame will spur you to improve where my cheerful cajoling last year did not. CRITS FOR WEEK 441 Simply Simon You Will You know I’ve always wondered what an incel-only open mic night might churn out. No, actually I haven’t but now I know whether I like it or not. You’ve produced something here that is both simultaneously creepy and tedious to read. I’m not sure how long this story actually was since you didn’t bother to post your wordcount, but if you snipped out the middle four paragraphs, it wouldn’t substantially change the “story” at all. And seriously: “she smells like good things do and you smell like the worst?” poo poo. The word you were looking for was poo poo. Tree Bucket The Three Steps of the Giant Good grief, where to start. Listen--I like you, you got moxie. Unfortunately your writing has also got a whole sack of things that are pet peeves of mine. -“One thousand meters tall?” All of you non-American motherfuckers are always telling me about your vaunted metric system and how superior a base ten measurement system is. Well then do some simple loving division and call it a “kilometer.” -The giant is loud enough that it breaks his phone, but it somehow doesn’t deafen him permanently? Have you ever been around loud things? Is that how they work now? I only ask because I have been around loud things and haven’t heard anything but EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE in the past 15 years. Maybe things have changed. -Then there’s this gem: “Rob fell to ripped soil.” Is this TD round secretly a poetry slam night that I got tricked into judging? Unless you’re desperately trying to adjust your writing to fit some weird meter (the poetry sort, not the pretend-its-not-arbitrary-because-you-can-divide-by-ten sort), then use articles. If the English language is easy about one thing, it’s articles. We’ve only got three of them, it’s not that hard. Ask Simon about the genitive case some time. Preferably when I’m not around. But check it—as a story, this wasn’t that bad. It was weird, and it is ok to write weird stories, but you always have to keep asking yourself, “What would a real person do?” That’s the weird tale sniff-test. As long as people keep behaving like people, then you can get away with a lot in setting and events during a story. This one’s not bad, but it needs some serious tightening up to reach a point where I buy what you’re selling. Phiz Khalifa Smooth Moon Apparently in this new year we’re not doing word counts anymore. TwentyTwenty just burned away all of our common decency and now we just say “gently caress you judges, if you want to know how many words are in this story, you can copy paste it into a word processor.” Well gently caress you, too. How many words is this? Don’t know, don’t care. As for what you wrote, well, I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed. If you got a point for every time the word moon, smooth, or Houston appeared in the story, you’d be doing great. But you don’t and you didn’t. As a joke, it was too long to really land the punchline, and it was too short to be a proper shaggy dog. Brotherly The Doom Vat Welp, you nearly had me. The story was going along just fine, then I got to the last four paragraphs. C’mon man! You’re better than this. The old wizard asks him what he’s done? That old fart was in the room on every other failed attempt. He knows. If you and I were in the kitchen, and I kept loving up the same recipe every day, would you ask me “what have I done?” when you walked in one day to find that I had somehow not hosed it up as badly as usual? If you’re going to go for a shock ending, then it’s gotta land SurreptitiousMuffin Mr Hands but Make it Actual this Time You know what you did. Or rather I know what you didn’t do, which is proofread your entry before smashing the “submit” button. Autocorrect done did you dirty, Muffin. At least I hope it was autocorrect, or you need to have a serious chat with your Editor. Beyond that, reading this piece gave some intriguing insight into a person’s descent into madness. It was weird and unsettling, but the person behaved like a person to the bitter end even in the face of mounting mental distress. You doing ok? Flerp Empty Well would you look at that, another member of the “I’m too cool for a word count” club. Pity that you decided to be the third person to do it, which means that you aren’t the hip trendsetter you thought you were. Just another tired poseur. Speaking of being tired—for a story about insomnia, Empty sure put me to sleep. A guy walks around and thinks about poo poo and has a dog. Break-ups are really meaningful to people who are going through them and really boring to the rest of the world. Unless there’s something in that break-up that I’ve never seen before, no amount of decent prose or cute dog will make it interesting. Nae Man Plans; Oh look, it’s someone else who thinks they’re like Lovecraft but not racist. Well back off Nae, because this is my turf. The problem here is that in an attempt to give the white man his comeuppance, you shot yourself in the believability foot. Is believability foot an expression? Is now. Look, one of two things has to be true here. Either A) Ozwald and his people are pretty dumb and got conned into building a castle for some first world rear end in a top hat, or B) Ozwald and his people are pretty smart and it’s actually the first world rear end in a top hat who’s the dummy. Now from the way this is written, it’s pretty obvious that you were leaning into case B, but that leaves lingering questions about just how Ozwald’s people got conned into building a castle. And sure, you can clap your hands and say “Haha! Because they were in control the whole time!” But that leaves an even bigger problem. That means you’re trying to sell me on an idea that there’s been an elder god watching over and guiding a bunch of Innsmouth-look jerks for centuries, but s/he/it has been waiting on one particular honkey to come sailing up so it can get finally get Malibu Stacey’s Dream Temple built. Gorka Chosen Yeah ok, but why tho? Was magical realism really in need of being toned down a notch? The prose is decent, but this feels like a joke without a punchline. Odin needs computer touchers now, I guess. Big call for PMP certs to make sure Ragnarök stays ahead of schedule and underbudget. Asgard is getting bought out by Amazon and they’re migrating the Bifrost Bridge to the cloud. DO YOU SEE WHAT I AM DOING HERE? I AM FINISHING YOUR JOKE FOR YOU. Magic Cactus Groundhogs, Reconsidered I don’t know who came up with the phrase a hot mess but they have done mankind a service. The weird upside-down writing at the beginning is a Chekov’s gun that never goes off, or maybe it does but instead of a bullet it’s some weird word-witch spell that never gets properly explained. We’ve got two characters that are some sort of paranormal book nerds or something, but I don’t know enough about either of them to make Maria’s sadness mean anything to me. And there’s a creepy kid, because why the gently caress shouldn’t there be a creepy kid? I’ve never done ketamine. Can someone who has tell me if this is what it’s like? Thranguy And Talking Trees, and Leagues of Grass A hot mess, plus DICKS. Cactus, I take it back. I’ll have some of that ketamine if you still got it. Noah Hummingbird Wish Me Luck What a wonderful and elegant story to remind me what a mound of poo poo we’re all still buried under. I was ready to say “You know what, there’s been an awful lot of magical realism this week…be nice to see a well written ‘slice of life’ piece now and then.” Well weren’t you just the covid djinn to hear my wish? That’ll teach me to want nice things or have any hope whatsoever. Also, watch what words you’re snipping out and give it one more proofread if you’re trying to make wordcount. When there’s words missing that ought to be there, and when pronouns aren’t lining up with antecedents, the annoyance interferes with the state of proper depression you were shooting for. sebmojo Epistle of Ixion Jr. III *rimshot* Hey man, you have to tell me what mobile carrier you’re with because their rates must be amazing given how you phoned this one in. Antivehicular Advice to a Young Traveler I can't bust heads like we used to, but I have my ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones... sparksbloom Peanut Butter Jelly Time You know, for every other person this week I’ve been a real rear end in a top hat and told them how much their story sucked and what they’ve done wrong, and how much it’s ruined my day. Can’t say the same for you, sparks. This is a really sweet story that didn’t feel like a chore to read and made me feel a little better about the human condition in general. No glaring typos, and the prose was workmanlike. So gently caress you for throwing me off my game this week. obliterati How Yer Grampa Glaikit Beat Back The Beats Who’d have thought this week would be so bad that my favorite piece would be about a dubstep infected robot, written in marginal English? May yer lum reek, fuckface. Crabrock My Favorite Mistake horns dot a i f f Don’t think there’s anything going on here that you don’t already know about--like a main character who only exists to push a button in the story and just watches everything else happen. I heard you were over the wordcount, and it looked like you decided to snip out the parts of the story that would give it meaning and substance, and just leave the gags intact. Probably the right choice.
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Jan 19, 2021 18:04
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You know I'm in
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Jan 19, 2021 18:06
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In, flash
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Jan 19, 2021 18:20
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Thranguy posted:In, flash Someone gets knocked down by a piece of unexpected news.
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Jan 19, 2021 18:56
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in and a flash
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Jan 19, 2021 19:05
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In and flash
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Jan 19, 2021 19:05
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Weltlich posted:in and a flash Someone gets knocked down by a gust of wind. a friendly penguin posted:In and flash Someone gets knocked down by a gigantic tail.
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Jan 19, 2021 20:46
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i'm in, flash
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Jan 19, 2021 21:14
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in, give flash, bash fash
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Jan 19, 2021 22:24
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In.
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Jan 20, 2021 00:26
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sebmojo posted:i'm in, flash Someone gets knocked down by the blues. crabrock posted:in, give flash, bash fash Someone gets knocked down by a shillelagh.
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Jan 20, 2021 00:43
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Wrong thread, whoops In and
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Jan 20, 2021 05:02
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 Well, well, well... I heard that someone's feeling a little froggy that I've embraced a heel's lifestyle. To all the folks at home and in the Thunderdome tonight, let me tell you about how liberating it is to finally throw off the shackles of being a face. No more pandering to the fair-weather fans. Lots of time to kick back and write whatever I want to write instead of trying to figure out what some namby-pamby judge wants to hear. A lot of you jerks fear the losertar, but I was never free until it broke my chains. Back to the matter at hand. I've heard rumors that someone here wants to challenge me, but won't come out and do it. So Sebmojo... I'm callin' you out, brother. You wanted a brawl, well you got one!
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Jan 20, 2021 19:17
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As the proud(?) possessor of one of the worst entry-to-loss/dm ratios in all of Thunderdome: In!
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Jan 21, 2021 04:37
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Weltlich posted:
 buzzards gotta eat, same as the worms
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Jan 21, 2021 04:53
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All right, you heels and faces, I'm hurling myself into the fray as Brawl Judge. I have no idea what I'm doing, since I've never done this before, which makes me the absolute perfect referee for such a high-stakes duel. This brings me to the prompt: Rivals in Random Places  Every good competition has its rivals, and every rivalry has an appropriate battlefield. Wrestlers fight in the ring; chefs duel in the kitchen; Cloud and Sephiroth fight in Final Fantasy VII. When rivals fight in those spaces, everything is right in the universe. When rivals fight in the wrong places, nothing makes sense. Wrestlers start dueling at chili-cookoffs, chefs start punching each other in parking lots, and plumbers start getting stabbed. Write me a story about rivalries heating up in the wrong location. Rival businessmen dueling it out through their kids' book reports? Great. Rival boxers taking their aggression out with Tetris? Fabulous. Give me any rivals anywhere, as long as those rivals are out of their comfort zone. After all, why should they be comfortable? This is Thunderdome! Word Count: 1500 Due Date: Tue, Jan 26, at 11:59pm PST Additional Rules: No fanfic allowed, but erotica IS allowed
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Jan 21, 2021 06:00
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Obliterati posted:THUNDERDOME WEEK 442: I GET KNOCKED DOWN BUT I GET UP AGAIN Bout time I got up again. I'm in.
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Jan 22, 2021 11:02
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 Signups close in 24 hours!
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Jan 22, 2021 14:15
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Adding a to my in to get a few extra words.
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Jan 22, 2021 17:23
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Obliterati posted:
Signups are closed! You'd all better be getting on with getting back up again!
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Jan 23, 2021 15:29
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Nae posted:All right, you heels and faces, I'm hurling myself into the fray as Brawl Judge. I have no idea what I'm doing, since I've never done this before, which makes me the absolute perfect referee for such a high-stakes duel. This brings me to the prompt: I feel like this is too good to not be a week
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Jan 23, 2021 18:43
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Mercedes posted:I feel like this is too good to not be a week Win and make it so.
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Jan 23, 2021 22:27
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