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A critZearothK posted:Redemption for Week #465 What I like about the story: I think you manage to capture the standoffish attitude of a cat pretty well in your story. It is cute, funny, and ends on a good note. What I found wrong: Other than the occasional punctuation issue, which I'm definitely not qualified to call anyone out on, I found some of the sentences seemed to lose their flow, or confuse: "These strangers carry the perfume of too many cats, dogs too, no one can love that many, their love is not real. " maybe should be rewritten. ("These strangers carry the perfume of too many cats, and even dogs. No one can love that many. Their love is not real." - the terrible way I would write it.) "The record player is here, the safest place in the universe, I crawl in where the bass beast growls." ("The record player, the safest place in the universe, is here. I craw in where the bass beast growls." - the terrible way I would write it.) That said, my own understanding of it, and writing in general is incomplete. These are just my thoughts. As far as redemptions go, even though it wasn't my week, I'd say... REDEEMED! 6/10
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Oct 10, 2022 03:07
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A critThranguy posted:Hate is the Spice What I don't like about this story: I think you often write pretty close to deadline, maybe I'm wrong about this, but that's just my hunch. This one definitely needed some proofreading and editing, but the message ultimately came across in a way that wasn't obstructed by the typos. I'd say: 7.5/10
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Oct 10, 2022 03:27
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I know I technically had to have the crits before sign-ups close, and I'm still disqualified, and a terrible gremlin, but here are my words anyhow... Bird Watching Goes Both Ways 1,444 Words Carlos sunk into the loveseat as Diana’s movers wheeled out the last of her possessions. “Anything else, boss?” a mover yelled, but Carlos was barely present. He raised puffy eyes towards the mover and lazily shook his head "no". The mover nodded and closed the door leaving Carlos to his own devices. Carlos extricated himself from the loveseat and shuffled across the mostly empty apartment to the only thing that remained of the love he and Diana once shared, Papo, their lovebird. Carlos groaned at the irony of Papo’s presence and the bird bobbed on its perch in recognition. Though it quickly lost interest and fluttered around the enclosure signaling it wanted out. Carlos unlatched the cage and Papo flew toward the ceiling. He circled the new empty spaces in the apartment. “I know, buddy,” Carlos whined more than said before moving into what was now his bedroom. Papo followed him, perched on his shoulder, and began nipping at his ear. “Papo!” Carlos shouted, suddenly stirred. Papo tugged at his ear lobe. The beak pinched into his flesh and welled up into a bead of blood. “gently caress!” Carlos shouted before swatting Papo away. “What the gently caress was that for, man?” Papo perched on top of the open closet door and craned his head at Carlos. A thin rivulet of blood trickled down onto his neck and Carlos stormed off into the bathroom to assess the damage. Papo protested and flew after him. It dug its claws into the back of his shirt and pulled him with more strength than a 2-ounce bird should have. Carlos didn’t register that though. He just swatted the bird away. “Seriously, dude. What the gently caress is up with you? Is this… Is this about Diana? Are you sad too? I get it, man, but not much I can do about that now. It’s done. She’s gone. She ain’t coming back.” Papo landed back on the top of the closet door and used its wing to push off from the frame, opening the door. Carlos squinted at this and walked over to the closet. It was empty. Carlos met Papo’s gaze and said, “Well?” and began to walk away when he heard the bustle of a busy marketplace behind him. He snapped back around and to his surprise, found the closet changed. A grand bazaar with people and creatures that belonged to fairy tales or nightmares stretched out in front of him. Carlos stood in the open door, mouth agape. “Let’s get on with it then,” Papo said. Carlos was taken further aback when he looked over at Papo, who was no longer a small lovebird. Nearly man-sized with a multitude of eyes emerging and retracting from thick tufts of red feathers, Papo nodded his head at Carlos. Carlos couldn’t help but scream. “Seriously, my guy? That’s pretty hosed up, and like, have you even checked a mirror lately? You look ragged, dog,” Papo said. Somehow, that managed to reel Carlos back in some. Bring some normalcy to a very not normal situation. “I, I didn’t mean anything by it. I swear,” Carlos said still trying to piece together what exactly was going on. “Yeah, I get it. Giant bird with a bunch of eyes, closet portals, and so on, BUT-” Papo said raising a wing in the direction of the market, “-we’re here for you, homie. It’s time to get your groove back. To find the new you, or whatever.” Carlos looked in the direction of the market as two halves of a bisected man hopped from stall to stall holding his own hands, perfectly preserved innards on display. “J-Jesus!” Carlos stammered, “what the gently caress is going on?!” “Welcome to Hell, buddy,” Papo said, shoving Carlos through the door. Carlos turned to grab the handle but watched in horror as the door just vanished and was replaced by an expansive vista. They were on top of a bluff that overlooked a black ocean. The bones of mountain-sized giants decayed far out in the distance. Carlos staggered away from the bluff and stumbled over a dog-sized hand with too many fingers. It skittered away from them and Carlos retched. “Easy, buddy. Easy!” Papo said, patting him on the back. “No way in hell was I going to let you mope around for the next six to nine months. You gotta get back out there and cut your losses.” “What? What are you talking about?” Carlos asked. “Obviously, the breakup,” Papo said. “I know it’s hit you hard, and you’re alright for a mortal. You always get that good, organic, “sustainably-grown” poo poo. I mean sure… Diana was cool and all, but we all knew that I was your surrogate child. To Diana, I was just a bird. She changed the water when it looked dingy or low, but she was never invested in having pets or kids. And that’s just 1 of the 17,642 reasons you weren’t compatible.” “17,642 reasons?” Carlos asked quietly. “I probably could have found more, but that guy from her job who had always been way too into her is finally getting screen time in her DMs and I figured, why keep counting?” Carlos looked shocked. “Now, now… I’m just loving with you, but it’s not like you both didn’t have wandering eyes. Another of the 17,642 reasons. Now, where were we?” Papo said as they passed from one stall to the next. Carlos tried not to look at anything. The bisected man was more than enough. His eyes were fixed on the red soil beneath his feet, the only thing that made a modicum of sense, but still he’d see things slither, scurry or shuffle about impossibly in the periphery. “Here we are… Zepar, what is up, G? How long’s it been? A century? Two? Us Gods be damned, it is good to see you.” The supposed merchant groaned. “Caim. It’s not been long enough. To what do I owe this… displeasure?” Carlos looked up at the man referred to as Zepar and saw that the ordinary stall seemed to expand into an ornate and magnificent palace when gazing directly at its interior. However, it was the ongoing orgy inside the palace that caught Carlos’s attention. He tried to avert his eyes but found he couldn’t. It was only when he realized that there was agony interwoven in the ecstasy that he looked away. “Ahem. As you can see… I have company. Now, if we could wrap up whatever this is?” Zepar said impatiently. Papo, Caim according to the merchant, stepped forward. “I’ll cut this short because my mans here is about to have a heart attack and a living human dying in hell is never pretty. We need a love potion.” Zepar scoffed. “A love potion? That’s it?” “Ah, well… to be totally correct, an anti-love potion? Dealing with heartbreak, don’t feel like hearing this guy bitch or moan for the next however long.” Zepar nodded. “Hmm, alright then. Not my typical brand of serotonic manipulation, but you’ll find no finer alchemist in Hell. Payment?” Papo punched a tiny hole in Carlos’s other earlobe with the tip of its beak causing Carlos to yelp. Still, Carlos was too terrified to move or do much else. The blood began to trickle out from the hole, but it drifted into the air, coagulating into a whole. The blood eventually formed a gem about the size of an almond. Papo plucked it from the air and placed it on the stall’s counter. Zepar snapped his fingers and a seam opened up in reality like a curtain flap. A succubus strut through and fixed lascivious eyes on Carlos who was held captive by her gaze. “Down boy!” Papo squawked as it battered Carlos with a wing. The succubus removed a glass phial from its bosom and handed it to Zepar before disappearing back into the seam it had opened. “Take this twice a day with food. No refills.” Zepar said handing Carlos the phial. “My man!” Zepar groaned before waving his hand and making his stall disappear from the bazaar completely. Papo wrapped its wings around Carlos, and plunged him into darkness. Carlos could feel himself falling, but found this a relief compared to being in hell. He exhaled as if accepting fate, and fell backward from the closet onto his rear end. Cheap, spackled over, drywall back where it should be. Papo was perched on Carlos’s chest, and clasped in Carlos’s hand was the small phial. A bile-yellow liquid swirled about nebulously inside. Carlos looked at it, then at Papo who bobbed its head up and down in approval. He uncorked it and put it to his lips.
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Oct 10, 2022 03:44
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Week 531 Submission Trigger Warning--Sexual Assaultflash:  No Ring 1066 Words Marcus adjusts the sleeves of the preppy cardigan wrapped loosely around his neck, and god, I’d like to pull them until he choked. I’d been on tour with Raffi, The Teletubbies, then The Wombles, and it was boring, but work was work. They were fine. Annoying, maybe, but fine. Everything was smooth backstage. None of them wanted anything more than to prep and then, in Raffi’s case, get to the next gig. In The Wombles case, get back to their families as much as possible. All that backyard birthday party stuff was way behind me. But it’s barely a step above. And I suppose I’d been lucky for the last twelve years just shucking equipment into trucks and laying cable for mics. It’s not a terrible gig if you can get it, and in with a good act. Everything wraps by nine in whatever country, and you can find a karaoke bar virtually wherever you are. Once in a while you’ll have to huck the stink of BO and foam and the distinctive tang of contact cement and scrabble into the Po costume. It’s not really describable. You just have to get into a stage costume and do it for yourself. You get a sense of how shoddy the costumes are, especially the travelers, nevermind the TV versions, once you’re inside them. Maybe Jim had better ideas, but he’s been dead for thirty years. I never got to work for Henson. The rest of this costume drama of neon faux-fur and ping-pong eyes and poo poo and slop never comes close. The sideshow substandard. And Henson never would have allowed the Elmo poo poo to go down or any of the rest. His death was a tragedy. It all feels like a ripoff. An entire industry built around one visionary, and all these orbiting asteroids are ready to crash into each other or into the sea and end it all at any moment. It’s not the worst, but it sure ain’t great. One of the strongest things you can do is not care. Detach yourself from reality, and the gig, and just get on with the day. It’s not your day, as the saying goes. It’s just ‘the day.’ That’s fuggin problematic, but that’s showbiz. And there’s no real need, Marcus just wants you in the costume, and it doesn’t feel like a fetish thing, he’s just being a dick. He says, “Get in the Kiwifruit costume.” And you have to weigh your options. The regular guy is out slapping gaffer tape on some cables, and you feel for him. Maybe it’s good to give him a break. He'd do the same switched. Production crew solidarity, yeah? Children’s entertainment is a gently caress. My bra catches on the foam, so I take it off, and there is Marcus, hovering behind me. He can’t see much aside from some sideboob, and I know he wished he saw more, but I’m absolutely fuming that he’s in here, but I have three feet circular of fuzzy kiwi wedged between the makeup counter and the cabinets, and the stools are bolted down so I don’t have anywhere to go. He’s lurking in the doorway, in that casual stance, elbow above his head against the jamb. That fuggin “‘Hey, babe,’ stance. He says, “You want to write a song? I have some ideas.” I’m still wedged in here. He slithers in closer, and drops a notebook on the counter. There are a million lights in here, but I feel a million miles away from anyone else. He opens it. His handwriting is like calligraphy, immaculate. I look to the door, and it’s just a box of shadow, the void is outside. I focus on the handwriting to avoid eye contact. There is nothing besides me trapped in a foam prison and Marcus, edging nearer and nearer until he’s touching the kiwifruit fuzz and I hear him take a deep breath. I feel it a little on my arm and back. Is he fuckin taking a whiff of my armpit slash sideboob, or the glue and foam? Or both? I can’t even get my arm up if I wanted to punch him in the face. I want to puke. It’s toothpaste and whisky, and Scope and whisky, and he flips a page in the book and it’s blank and he has a fancy fountain pen. He presses the point into the page, and the ink spiders out. “What do you think?” he says. “When Dad Finds a New Friend? Maybe it’s time to deal with more—touchy—subjects.” And for the first time, he actually touches my bare skin. A brush against my shoulder, and down my arm. I’m still wedged between the makeup chairs in 70 pounds of foam kiwifruit. “Are you warm?” he asks, since he could have heard my breathing from the next county over. “Oh, this? This doesn’t mean anything.” He takes his wedding ring off and puts it on the counter. “If that’s what’s worrying you, we’re on a break. Might even get divorced. That will be tough. Tough on the kids.” He puts on a puppydog face, and I don’t know if it’s ever genuinely worked on anyone. It looks more like the skin mask of a serial killer. I shout. Guttural. I think I said ‘help,’ but whatever it was, it’s close enough. Marcus’s assistant pops his head in to the trailer, and I basically collapse in relief. “Marcus,” he says, “Is everything alright?” Marcus nods, and waves a hand and dismisses him. That headset gently caress vanishes into the void with a knowing fuckin smile on his face. But my collapse frees my arm, and I sink into the foam kiwi and the other one is free. Marcus turns back to me from the doorway, and says, “Sorry about that.” But I have a surprise for him. He doesn’t notice the fountain pen is missing from the counter. Doesn’t notice it, that is, until it’s pushed firmly into his vitreous humour. And it’s a lyrical scream that follows. And I just punch and punch and punch holes in his kid-friendly face, tattooing him with the fountain pen and it seems the blade never dulls. Headset is there and he’s shrieking, “What have you done?” He’s saying it to me, but he knows the who the real audience is.
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Oct 10, 2022 05:23
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Thunderdome Week DXXI: Monsters in the Margins One Night at the Grinning Goose 1065 words Gerald never should have let his daughter leave for the big city. It's not like he could have stopped her, she had too much of her mother in her for that. That made her his favorite child, but she was determined to set her own path instead of taking over his. He should have found a way to satisfy her craving for adventure that didn't involve her moving away to such a filthy port city. Gerald was en route to said city now, ready to meet his daughter's fiance. He wasn't even a big successful cityfolk, just the cook at the pub that his daughter worked at, Gerald did not care about that, he cared about the man, whether he would go far. The Grinning Goose, complete with giant goose head logo with a big dumb smile on its face. Gerald scowled back as he arrived. The door was knotty wood, doused in dangerous stains. Before it was even pushed all the way open, the smell hit Gerald’s face. Garlic and cumin, but beneath them the smell of gamey meat. Gerald steeled his stomach. The pub was surprisingly packed considering the sparsely populated streets, yet the patrons were quiet. A dozen conversations at whispered volume carried on, all spoken by customers sitting still with their hands folded in front of them. Gerald grew more suspicious as none of the customers even glanced at his direction as he arrived. "DADDY!" came a familiar cry behind him. Finally, despite his foul mood, he was ecstatic to see his little Sarah, now not so little both in height and in how much she was spilling out of the barmaiden uniform. She absentmindedly pushed aside a customer who was leaning out of his chair, he settled against the wall, drooling. "I'm so glad you made it!" After pleasantries, Gerald said, “It’s time to meet this partner of yours, see if he is worth our family’s time!” Sarah brought her man forth. “This is Aggie, he’s got quite a meal plan prepared for you today, daddy!” Aggie was tall, thin, with large eyes that darted around the room. He stuck out his hand for Gerald to shake. Gerald eyed it suspiciously, but did so. Gerald also eyed the tail sticking out of Aggie’s apron. He was doing a bad job of disguising his true form, but in Gerald’s mind it clicked. The patrons acting drugged, the big eyes, the horse-like tail and food obsession. Aggie was a gourmando! After Aggie went back to cook the food, Gerald asked, “Why didn’t you tell me he was a gourmando?” “I didn’t know how you’d react, daddy!” “You know I don’t care what he is, as long as he can take care of you. That’s why I’m here.” Gerald could hate a place’s atmosphere but still like the food. From the moment the first dish arrived it was clear he was going to hate every part of this journey. The bread was bland and hard, the meat smelled worse than the sauce, the pasta crunched in his mouth. A complete mess. To make matters worse, all the food was soaked in gourmando juice. The hypnotic venom had no effect on Gerald, who had been exposed to it constantly through his work, but it added a blandness to the overall meal. Sarah watched her father’s disappointed face as each course was served, growing more upset, not at him, but at Aggie failing to make the grade. Back by the firepits, the shouting got louder after each course as it became more obvious Aggie was not cutting it. After the last course, Aggie came out to meet Gerald again. Aggie was so upset his monster form was morphing out of his human disguise. “No need to keep that up, Aggie, I know what you are!” Aggie shifted back to his gourmando form. “But how?” “There are three gourmandoes working for me! How do you think I run the most efficient farms in the territory? That’s not the problem here, the problem is this was the worst dinner I have ever been served!” “Mr. Blackstone, this is my best cooking!” Gerald snorted. “Your best? The beef was older than me! The shortbread pie contained no fruit, how are you going to balance the flavor with the body humors of your patrons? The food was too chunky, large pieces will not be absorbed effectively by the body.” Aggie tried to argue, but Gerald just talked over him. “Not only that, the color of the dishes is awful, you must satisfy the eyes as well as the stomach. Food is not just about taste, it’s about presentation. This slop is not fit for the scrap pit of the vilest pig farm. You’ll never get a position cooking for royalty with this output!” Aggie threw off his apron and sat down at the table, despondent. Gerald wasn’t phased and kept talking. “The bad food I could live with, but I’d have demanded you get a real cook for my daughter. The real problem is you are wasting your power. What are you doing, controlling a small block of people to spend money at your pub? That’s the weakest big plan I’ve ever seen! Why aren’t they working the kitchen? Bringing in more guests? Working in a factory in the basement? These people are doing nothing important beyond consuming more of your food and resources. A pointless waste. This the lack of ambition is embarrassing, and has no place in our family.” “Mr. Blackstone, I’m sorry, this is my first time trying a scheme. I didn’t want to be too ambitious!” “Ambition is good, but you are too cautious. The gourmandoes that work for me, they know their limits and use it to their advantage. I can see you are young, but I’d have preferred a big scheme that was failing miserably to something so small scaled that it was just a waste. Your ambition is as sloppy as your food!” Gerald stood up. “I’ll be back again in one month. If you aren’t in the middle of the grandest scheme I’ve ever seen, I’m going back home immediately with Sarah!” “But daddy!” “No argument, sweetie!” Gerald turned to Aggie as he put on his hat. “Remember, think big!” He was gone. Aggie stared at his apron, then shyly looked at Sarah. “You were right. Now let’s start your plan.”
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Oct 10, 2022 08:17
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Submissions are closed.
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Oct 10, 2022 09:29
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Thunderdome DXXXI judgement This was not a particularly strong week, and a particularly poor week for endings. Even the better stories ended just when they were threatening to get interesting. The worst of the lot was The Cut of Your Jib's No Ring, which takes the loss this week. A dishonorable mention goes to Tars Tarkas' One Night at the Grinning Goose At the top of the week, first is an HM for flerp's you can do anything including boys, which might have won if not for the late crit bounty and minimal use of the prompt. So our winner is Something Else, with The Devil's Romance. Welcome back to the Blood Throne!
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Oct 11, 2022 07:20
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Week 531 Crits of Marginal(ia) Quality One Night at the Grinning Goose The main problem here is that this is like… the setup for a story, and not a story itself. Nothing gets resolved, there are no actual stakes (since Gerald does not, in fact, take his precious daughter back), and the ending seems to be the start of the actual plot (do what’s-her-name and the gourmando manage to impress Gerald?). There’s some other questions I’m left with (like why the daughter ran away from home to recreate her father’s exact business model, which she was apparently dissatisfied with enough to run away from), and you have some oddly anachronistic turns of phrase here (idk why, but “daddy” really threw me off), but I don’t know, I guess it was okay other than that? I’d focus a bit more on writing a complete narrative moving forward, and then you can polish your prose a bit more. Bird Watching Goes Both Ways This is another non-story, although this is more of a “thing happen, so what” non-story than an unfulfilled setup. Carlos has his little jaunt to hell with Papo/Caim, and… gets a potion. Cool. No one has to work at anything, I have no real reason to care about this, and it mostly just seems to be an excuse to describe a couple of Bosch creatures (although if that’s what you want to do, you didn’t describe nearly enough, imo), and say “Seriously, dude?” several times (maybe work on differentiating character voice while you’re at it; everyone was very same-y). I’d try cutting the whole opening and using the space to introduce some conflict: maybe Carlos doesn’t want to get over it, maybe Papo has to pay off some debt before he can get the potion, idk just something so it’s not just a gallery walk/pep talk. No Ring This is so muddled and confusing I barely understand what’s happening. I think maybe some of the obfuscation was you attempting to be tastefully non-specific in your description of a sexual assault, but it actually just makes it somehow more uncomfortable. At the end of this story I don’t know anything about the main character except that they work in children’s entertainment, and then about halfway through that they have boobs. It feels like you focused more on being snarky about the industry and the shithead producer (manager? Showrunner? Whoever the gently caress) than you did on the actual victim of said sexual assault, which is… not great. Like, they don’t have a name, or dialogue, or really any personality whatsoever. And then it just ends with sudden extreme violence? Eesh. I’d just scrap this whole thing and reflect on the specific choices you made here and why, because they weren’t good ones. you can do anything including boys Perfect setup and execution on your opening, A+. I’m definitely a sucker for LGBTQ “gently caress you mom/dad/society,” and this was a sweet example of that, if maybe a smidge stereotypical. I feel like the second half could be a little bit stronger, but it was well-done, and your ending tied together with your opening nicely. I don’t 100% see a super strong connection to your picture, but I also don’t give a gently caress. Thank you for this brief respite, and a complete story. Beasts of the Beanstalk Aaaaand we’re back to “thing happen, so what.” Sigh. I liked your descriptions of the vine-lociraptors (I’m sorry, I have a problem), and the ending was kinda cute, although it would have been a lot more effective if you’d showed that there was a need for pest-control on the farm in the first place. The whole thing with the druid/priest felt extremely pointless, and the car seemed out of place in your setting. Really, why was any of that necessary? I’d reduce the druid to a passing mention at best, and focus on the interplay between the farmer’s needs/wants and the creatures. You have something here, it just seems like kind of an afterthought as it is. The Devil’s Romance This feels like a joke story, but it’s not very funny. Like, maybe it would work as an animated short or something, but I just don’t feel like it works as it is. There’s a running “gag” of the devil dude getting in Roderick’s way while trying to encourage him, but I genuinely don’t understand why or what it’s supposed to be in service to. You threw in the mention of Anne’s pregnancy at the end, I’m assuming as a “and that child… was With Raisins In This feels like a very, very literal interpretation of your picture, but you don’t really have any more going on than that. There are no stakes, no tension, no anything really, just some comedy that (imo) doesn’t land, and the “hahaha, we’ll call it EARTH!!!” bit at the end. It just feels really campy and dumb, and feels more like a long-winded joke than a story. Also, while I will forgive the title typo in the archives, since that doesn’t appear to have been your doing, I do NOT forgive your egregious homophone error in using “knight” for “night.” For shame, sir.
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Oct 11, 2022 07:27
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Crits for Week #531 Crits done in judgemode One Night at the Grinning Goose: The opening paragraph sets up some characters and a situation in a basic way, probably not as quickly or punchily as you might want. Not naming the daughter in it is a choice that is rarely the right one. This was pretty bad, overall. The worst sin is that it stops right when it threatens to become interesting, but being mostly a lecture from a character who's sort of all over the place is a big one too. Bird Watching Goes Both Ways: Slow opener, but it does establish a situation if not a plot. We move into some interesting ideas later that should come sooner, I think. Less of a story than a series of things that happened, and again we have it ending just as it might start to get interesting. you can do anything including boys: Slow but strong character opening. But this may be a case of 'cut the first paragraph', the second is stronger and I bet we'll get everything from the first again later. Yes, we do, so yes: cut the opening paragraph. But overall this is very strong, in the top area. Shame about the late crits. The Devil's Romance: Very nice, evocative opener. Really, this is a good story through the length, but the ending is a bit of a clunker. I'm not sure if this is in the ending just as it gets interesting category but it's close. Mostly it just needs a better way to get to a finish. Top group. Beasts of the Beanstalk: Okay opening, but one that makes me a bit wary, we seem to be treading well-trod folklore here. But we have an interesting world built here, diesel and druids, just not much of a character throughline to make the incidents add up to a plot. With Raisins In: Bare but functional opening. The names are a bit much. And a real groaner of an ending. But there is some charm here. No Ring: Am I about to be literarily goatsed? Strong opening. Not exactly goatse, but we are relying on shock value here. This may also fit in the ends too soon category. The main tension of the story, whether this is good, solid instinct or overreaction, would play out in detail in the aftermath. The slow, generalist start isn't great either.
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Oct 11, 2022 12:52
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Crits for week 531 - Monsters in the Margins Quiet Feet - With Raisins In - Missing punctuation in your first sentence is not ideal. You also go unnecessarily hard on the adjectives, so your prose reads on the clunky side. (Ex: “Trex drummed his four long fingers on the desk”, “Trex grabbed a mug of hot brown liquid”). Prose aside, your story was actually pretty fun! You’ve got a good voice behind the technical issues and the pacing felt right, and your concept was fresh and fun. Overall, I would say your story is a lot like an oatmeal cookie: great idea off-set by a sloppy appearance, but still enjoyable all around. Something Else - The Devil’s Romance - This story is weird. Did I like it? Did I hate it? Honestly, I don’t know. It creeped me out, so you succeeded in wringing some emotion from me, but I’m not sure if that was your goal. Technically, the middle section time jump felt too wordy for what you really needed to say (I left home and got rich, but I never stopped thinking of Anne), and I never felt myself getting absorbed by the story. Having said that, you do have some great turns of phrase (“[His voice] sounded like a burlap sack that snagged on a nail and ripped” is a favorite of mine) and you nailed the voice for this kind of story. Work on your pacing in future stories and you’ll be in great shape. Vinny Possum - Beasts of the Beanstalk - Interesting concept and I was with you most of the way through, but the ending fell flat for me. The beasts were built up as these bizarre, otherworldly creatures, and in the end they behaved like ordinary animals. The beanstalk at the beginning has a great supernatural feel that doesn’t carry through the rest of the story. It’s like you wrote Jack and the beanstalk and had it end with Jack finding the second story of his own house. When that’s all that’s up there, what was the point of the climb? Flerp - you can do anything including boys - You got that drunk, sultry squirrel, and this is what you decided to do with it? Listen, your story’s technically well-written and probably the most competent work of the week, and I have no real qualms with the content, but this is the dullest possible interpretation of the prompt imaginable. It’s Monsters in the Margins, not Monsters in the Mundane! Idle Amalgam - Birdwatching Goes Both Ways - Your story taught me that there is actual debate over whether the past tense of ‘sink’ should be ‘sank’ or ‘sunk’, so thank you for that (thunk you?). That aside, this story is definitely not mundane, and was a very cool direction to take the eye-bird. I’ve got some questions about why Papo was with Carlos in the first place, and you never made Carlos’s heartbreak feel real, but both of those things are less important than the fun vibes of bird-hell. Neat stuff. The Cut of Your Jib - No Ring - Your story takes too long to start and ends too fast. Your upfront material is largely superfluous, and in a 1000-word story, you can’t spend 400 words on your intro. Once you do start, the scene with Marcus is gripping and unnerving (really, well done), right up until the protag goes bananas and stabs him out of nowhere. And it is out of nowhere, because all the set up you did of the protag’s mental state amounted to ‘the job sucks but its a living’, which is not enough to justify a cold-blooded backstab. If she’d killed him to get him off of her, maybe you could say it was a buildup of everything that she’d been stressed about from the intro, but he’s already leaving the room when she stabs him. I can buy this character killing a guy in the heat of the moment, but that’s out-and-out murder. My advice: either set it up better or dial it back, because it doesn’t work as it stands. Tars Tarkas - One Night at the Grinning Goose - Cool concept, and I was able to figure out what a gourmando was from context, but there really wasn’t much to the story. Gerald starts the story knowing he’s going to hate the place, he does hate the place, he monologues about he hates the place, and then there’s a brief teaser of the story taking a turn (Sarah’s plan) and then bam, it’s over. I want to know what the plan was, because that sounds interesting. I’d also like to see this story from either Aggie or Sarah’s perspective, because both of them have more at stake than Gerald. They’d be tense waiting for his reaction, maybe while Aggie tries to hide his gourmando features or Sarah tinkers with her plan. Gerald has the least going on of the three of them, which makes him the least interesting perspective character. Give me the gourmando!
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Oct 11, 2022 15:30
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Thunderdome Week #532: Paseo Yortuque In the city of Chiclayo, Peru, there is a wide boulevard called Paseo Yortuque. Down the center of this street there is a walking path studded with statues of gods and monsters, many sculpted by Fredy Luque to express the enormously influential Moche and Lambayeque cultures of northern coastal Peru. Sign up, and I will give you a statue from Paseo Yortuque to inspire your writing. You can search and pick your own if you want, just make sure you post it in the thread so I don't double up. However I will double up at my discretion if too many people sign up. Your story certainly can, but doesn't have to be set in Peru or feature the imagery of the statue! This site has a bunch of decent pictures of the statues. Boilerplate: No erotica, google docs or external links, ideological screeds, plagiarism, fanfic Word limit is 1375. Write a story inspired by a Paseo Yortuque statue in 1375 words. I will close submissions capriciously when I start reading on Monday 10/17 (Pacific Time). Judges Me ...? ...? Paseantes Idle Amalgam flerp  Chernobyl Princess Thranguy dervinosdoom Sailor Viy Tyrannosaurus WindwardAway The Cut of Your Jib hard counter The man called M Antivehicular Something Else fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Oct 15, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 22:17
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In!
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Oct 11, 2022 22:21
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in
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Oct 11, 2022 22:31
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Oct 11, 2022 22:59
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Oct 11, 2022 23:13
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Something Else fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Oct 12, 2022 |
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Oct 12, 2022 01:36
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In and since i didnt complete week 530
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Oct 12, 2022 02:06
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dervinosdoom posted:In and 
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Oct 12, 2022 03:09
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In!
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Oct 12, 2022 03:51
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Oct 12, 2022 05:38
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Oct 12, 2022 07:27
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Oct 12, 2022 11:39
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Oct 12, 2022 20:32
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Birthday Week Judging, Tranche 2, Omega 1  70 Ophiuchi is a binary star system located 16.6 light years away from the Earth. Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is currently 158 AU away from Earth. how lonely, yet how glorious it must feel out there. the earliest fossils that have been proposed as members of the hominin lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis dating from 7 million years ago. they were cool, just chilling out in the Miocene having a good time getting ready to have us as descendents. i mention these interesting facts to put some context around the arguably extended amount of time between birthday week, and this, the second tranche of judging, which covers the Omega 1 phase. i'm sure now you will see that everything in this universe has its place and sometimes that place is a long, long way away. anyway enough blathering: the LOSER of Omega 1 is Two Spies Walk into a Bakery, by a friendly penguin. this wasn't truly terrible, but the generally ok quality of this week shoved it into a dead drop and left it there. a DM goes to Thesis Retrospective by Uranium Phoenix. again, not the worst, but failed to do anything interesting with a very solid premise, which made the judges grumpy enough to stick the shame-mark upon its sweaty pockmarked grad student brow. an HM goes to Rocket Man, by QuoProQuid. this was a bonkers ride through the big dipper of an incredibly rich assholes ego and was legit hilarious, for all the ending is pat and the whole thing is essentially cave johnson fanfic. didn't care, it was a blast just like the 34.5 million newtons of thrust produced by the five F1 rocket engines of the Saturn V launch vehicle. an HM also goes to Reflection by Thranguy. one of those beautifully poised mythic/fairy tale stories that shows up every now and then, my co-judge cared for it less, but I liked it enough to muscle it into the happy box. and finally or not finally really because we have two judgings to go the WINNER of Omega 1, tranche 2, of the inaugural thunderdome ten year birthday week is the Saddest Rhino, with the frankly insane Transcript of Stream #25 of Channel “Korean Food Made Blasphemous”. my co-judge gave this a physically impossible 15/10, at which point its victory was assured. hold on to your hats, judging for tranche 3 (omega 2) is hastening towards you on wheels made of words, and swearwords
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Oct 12, 2022 22:42
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1: Thesis Retrospective... 5 it's always a little disappointing when there's a solid bit on display, as here, but it doesn't reach the potential - useless grad student creating life the universe and everything and writing an awkward little article (with snarky supervisor comments) has some nice juice but this really just gestures at the concept rather than explores it. i was actually waiting for the description of how your guy gelatinised all cultures into a smooth slurry to extract their essence so they could extract the ph level or whatever, instead it was just 'ain't culture grand!?  ' not great, not terrible.3: Agony and Empire 8.5 lmao ok what a crisp and perfect opener. i am 100% invested in this story of a grumpy building, please do not disappoint me. i particularly like the detail - rattling pipes! - and the fussy old marm character you convey adroitly. ahahah and then the PARTY WEREWOLF a slick kickflip into 80s motivational you can do it history montage, and a clever bow on the ending. an exemplary silly td story. 4: Noctilucent Cloud 7.5 this is a mood piece, feels like it needs a post rock song with a title like Evanescent Echoes of the Dying Past Cast Light Upon the Rockface and it's really p decent for that, i like how consistently you evoke our angel buddy's love and grief, and create a final moment of beauty etc, it definitely accomplishes what it sets out to do plus: the mesosphere  two nitpicks, you don't capitalise mesosphere et al, and also your tenses are a little borked up - could have used some more work to clarify when things were happening and when they were being recalled. Nice piece though.5: An Account of Two Most Unusual... 6 okay first para is laying a number of dollars down as a bet we don't find this overly elocuted style annoying, let's see how that plays out for them cotton. specifically if you do this you need a lot of attention to rhythm and flow, you can be very wordy but the words have to know what they are doing - unfortunately you kind of muff it, and this needed both another edit to take away about 15% of the long words (and let the others have space to breathe) and also a bit of a spin on it, so it's not just 'vampire goes searching for tears, finds some'. 6: The rear end of the NPC 7.9 oh wow this is stupid, like so stupid, in which case why am I laughing, is it because it's stupid in exactly the right way? yes i believe it is. I don't think this needed a single word more or less, it is a perfect glinting gem of dumb. because of that I will subtract -0.1 for the extraneous 'I'm' at the end. 7: Reflection 9 ooooh this is just gorgeous stuff in that mythic vein, it hits the style perfectly, with the faintest hint of distance and a nice meter to the words, and all the comfy elements we're used to expect. i particularly liked the message at the end, and the image of the jealous wind ruffling the surface is lovely. vg. 8: Giant Varantula 6.5 Funny and light, leans into its absurdity then kickflips out before the whole thing falls over. 9: Two Spies Walk into a Bakery 4.5 I'm kind of iffy on using they pronouns in stories, unless you are going to put in the effort necessary to resolve the plural/singular confusion. It's not normally a problem irl because context is clear, but if you're requiring the reader to read a para multiple times to work out the sense, that's bad. particularly where you have phrases like 'grace stopped themselves' where it's a singular individual so it should be 'themself'. also 'they burst onto the roof to find a helicopter with guns rappelling down' is nonsensical, as is 'grace grabbed lee's waist and sychronised their fall'. also there's no real motivation for the heist or whatever it is, they're just spies doing spy stuff. this is a decent setup, but the execution is poor. 10: Just Like Tesco! (what the gently caress...) 5.5 this is, idk, fine - guy wrestles with racist thoughts in a store. what it's lacking is anything to take it beyond that - good stories are triangles, this is a straight line. if you could sum up your story completely in the title it's maybe a sign to find something to jink it a little. e.g, idk, the store dude is supporting the wrong team so he's mad/not mad about that instead? his wife decided to make something else? this is ok, just need a little more knob twiddling. 11: Dumb rear end 6.5 a rigorous and fearless examination of what it might be like to kiss a butt and have it fart @ u, this is p deece given the subject matter but you know (gestures at the subject matter helplessly) 13: Domino's March 6.5 i think this is ok, and it certainly delivers on the entertainngly wtf prompt, but it doesn't go much further. partly this is because it ends where it should have begun, partly because it's a kind of tired bureaucrat at 4.30 pm on a Thursday mental monologue. I think maybe the ending would have been better as a concrete observation of something happening rather than a 'hmm what happens next only time... will tell... ' like a news reporter doing a vox to camera 14: Ringside Manner 7.5 this is a shirt button poppin' good time, treading some reasonably well-worn canvas with the washed up wrestler but u kno what that's ok, you are kind of delighted by the absurdity of your duck-punching heel guy but also sympathetic to his washed-upness. I don't think the face turn quite lands, but this is a sleek bit of lightly comedic drama that knows how to get in and when to get out. 15: Understand (Horse Version) 7.5 quietly proud of this prompt and you do a journeymans effort in turning it into a story with a few thrills (of being a manmade god) and spills (goo), and i like the escalation and the absurd bittersweet triumph of the end. Tidy piece. 18: Rocket Man 8 ok, you risk a judgefrown by basically writing cave johnson fanfic but you know what I'm gonna allow it as you do it really well, and it's a legitimately hilarious vein of comedy to keep on mining. Overall this is a really slick piece, that barrels along with absurd imagery, a tightly ticking timer in the approaching cops, and that runs a strong backbone through it in the shape of the relationship between !NotCaveJohnson! and his harried assistant. i like the turnaround, though it probably needed one more line to really land, and the insane thing you built could actually hold up more than the 'then he died lol' ending you gave it, but this was a blast. 28: A wonderful day 6 ugh, this is well enough written on a sentence level, but i feel like it's the full stop at the end of a much more interesting story of this characters timeline hopping adventures? it's also a presumably accidental retread of a roald dahl 'tales of the unexpected' where some lady bludgeons some guy to death with a frozen piece of meat then cooks it and serves it to the cops who are investigating. thinking of that story, which was basically better in every way than this one makes me like it even less FROWNY FACE i mean, dgmw it's adequate 33: The Archeopteryges... 6.5 this is a very competently written yarn investigating the possibilities and conditions of a lizard rockstar getting their wingwang squeezed by someone in a a labcoat, and as such it achieves all its listed objectives. it's charming, and doesn't outstay its welcome, but i feel like we could have got a better window on this particular absurd situation? as it is it's 'protag clears up a misunderstanding' which is fine, but a tiny bit bland. 46: Transcript of Stream #25 of Channel.. 7.5 awright yis this is the good crazy poo poo, just a steaming log of madness that leans into its curve, hands tight on the rubberised grip rods, eyes unblinking behind the Oakley 9000s. love the language, love the deranged energy, extra love wandukong and would like/subscribe 63: Lunar Libertines 6 in place of any kind of crit i just want to post a gif of mark zuckerberg, inventor of meta, that slowly, slowly, zooms right in on one of his dead eyes until the screen is full of blackness 69: The Amazing Technicolor Scream... 6 this is kind of ok - you've gone for a very arch overwritten sort of style, replete with adjectives and polysyllabic modifiers, and good for you - you bring it off well enough. two main issues - it feels like the style is being pumped up to make up for a fairly slight (though cool) central idea, and also the ending is weak because it's not owing to anything the protagonist does. also, i really wanted the shower to just pour out spiders instead of water. 83: A Spiral, Not a Loop 6.5 competent but unexceptionable, I really like the workaday vibe you build with these two, though magic as a day job is reasonably well-trodden ground at this point. Where it falls down is that the story is kind of a shrug, for all that it's decently written. Needed another element, whatever that might be, some tension between the two, some developments? 86: Survival of the Fittest 6 hrmmmm this is an adequate bit (gophers coldwar intel briefing) that doesn't quite have the energy or incident to really carry off its inherent absurdity, and the final joke really isn't funny enough to make up the difference (as final jokes almost always aren't). comedy needs lightness, this is kind of leaden. 87: Total Eclipse of the Heart 5.5 uh oh i think this was maybe a late alpha prompt, tsk, such a bad judge. i can feel the strain of fitting the words into the prompt, and what we end up with would probably have worked better as a picture book or maybe a more impressionistic style for the trees talking to each other? as is, the chitchatty tree friends are a bit twee, and cutting back to human talk at the end really clunks. a pity, as i love the first couple of lines. 90: Apocrypha: The Book of Revelations 7 just bonkers, but i enjoyed the ride, plus you do what td wacky rarely does and stick the landing. i'm not totally clear on why broski McBroham (aka Broseph of Arimathea) is suddenly jesus, but i'm having enough fun not to really care.
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Oct 12, 2022 22:50
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ty critters all In for 532 Paseo Yortuque (gods help us) The Cut of Your Jib fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Oct 13, 2022 |
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Oct 13, 2022 02:38
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one inhuman monster please
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Oct 13, 2022 17:31
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The Cut of Your Jib posted:In for 532 Paseo Yortuque (gods help us) 
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Oct 13, 2022 17:31
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hard counter posted:one inhuman monster please 
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Oct 13, 2022 17:31
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In with:
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Oct 14, 2022 22:54
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What the heck, in.
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Oct 14, 2022 23:48
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Antivehicular posted:What the heck, in. 
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Oct 15, 2022 04:19
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Birthday Week Judging, Tranche 3, Omega 2  Reality is wrong, dreams are for real, as my man Tupac said, and you know what the other thing that is real is? These results. The loser of this week is Simply Simon with Dinosaur's Fangs, because you don't cliffhanger in this place, not unless you want to be yeeted over an actual cliff, yeah that's right i went there. Honourable mentions may be received, retained, and treasured for a delicious eternity by Bad Seafood, for Crunch Time, and Antivehicular for Disappointment Foreshadowed. And the winner, with a nicely turned dirtbag realist yarn, is Sailor Viy with Neil and I. Roll on Birthday Week Judging, Tranche 4, Omega 3! We will be joined for this by master of short shorts (and also of fiction with very few words) Ironic Twist.
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Oct 15, 2022 23:59
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The Color of Laughter 7.5 i like this a lot, it has a wonky, skew-whiff energy to its world and the almost magic realist details of masks and vampires are really effective in illuminating a sort of generic set of events. I saw an eagle cry!!! 7.5 in the terms of this story calling it brave is as absurd as anything else because you're not storming a beach under machine gun fire or w/e but i appreciated you peeling another layer off the truth onion it is given to us to unwrap Neil & I 8 this is definitely a genre, dirtbag realism, i guess, and it turns on the details and the honesty of the view, and this nails both. an exemplary piece. Duck and Cover 5 this could lose its first 3 paras, and really doesn't have enough story in it beyond the single incident. Stink Purse 6 great setup for a weak payoff, i kind of want to hear more about rosa bulldoza and this could be an mention along the way? even where it's a piece from life you still need to choose what details you use - there's a lot of not-that-interesting side detail here that could have been arrayed around a central image or point. Decent, though. Gravity and the Grouse 6.5 i like the numbered list trick, it is kind of cheap but it always seems to make stories better, i have no idea why that is maybe we all want our fiction to be a memo to the regional policy coordinator idk. i'm not sure the bits in this cohere quite as well as they could, but the ending is clever. Some May Say I Am A... 5 a list of stuff you do isn't a story, a curious fact for which this story provides a perfect exemplar. Ski Jump 7 ooonf this is effectively visceral and very well observed in the weird dumb stuff people do when they are medicated and/or horribly injured. hope you're ok now  The True Nature of Reality 6 the point of this is the stone dropping into water realisation at the end, with all the details of ninjas and lazer guns as zany filigree, and it hits that fairly well - I think it could have done with another para though? maybe not. Sleepwalking 6.5 yeah this captures a feeling, a woozy sort of disassociated miasmic vibe, it teases at something interesting happening when the viking leads our befuddled protag to the end then it doesn't, tsk. good up til then tho. The Last Moment 7 lovable italian art-moppet italo calvino liked talking about the ghost of the crossroads, the spirit of the You that you condemned to non-existence by taking one path and not the other. i like to think, or i have come to think, or i have learnt to comfort myself by thinking, that those memories are the spur to future action and toothgrinding feeling of an obsessive regret about an action undone or path not taken is what we can use to become a person who, next time, bites the fuckin bullet. anyway, good story. Old mountain road 6.5 a pleasant yarn, though yes a little bit too 'what i did on my holidays' in tone, at least at the start. If I Knew You Were... 6 gjwp Big Day Out 6.5 hell yeahhhhh metallicaaaa i was actually at this gig too but just saw them start from the other end of the stadium and went off and listened to UNKLE that was a BIg Day Out I tell u oh wait i don't need to you were there. Nice straightforward yarn. This Title Originally Ref... 7 great conversational standup rhythm, the title is probably the least successful part of it. this reads like an entertaining story you've told at parties and have the bits where people laugh down pat and you pause for just long enough. Dinosaur's Fangs 1 i hate you Crunch Time 7.5 aww, this is really good, just an ideally crafted story with all the bits in the right proportion like a good brunch, well-cooked scrambled eggs and crispy hash browns. not thrilling but very good. Disappointment Foresh... 8 delightfully adroit and controlled, exactly unlike the flailing descent from the really not that tall chair. Yo Celly Pt. 1 6.5 this is some tight writing, and you have slick vernacular patter that brings me along with it, but it needs something more to really hang as a story, admittedly ten characters is bastard hard and you manage it very well but there's no mercy here, just rage That Time We Were All... 5 i'm really not feeling this as a story, it's a bunch of things that happened and they're not particularly interesting. The weirdest thing is... 6.5 my the blood on me is not from my penis tshirt is raising questions that are already answered by my the blood on me is not from my penis tshirt. i enjoyed this little yarn, though it could have done with some kind of additional strut, a metaphor, an idk. doesn't even need much! fun engaging yarn tho Fly Ball 6 yeah, sweet little story, not aiming super high but it hits the mark.
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Oct 16, 2022 00:02
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The King's Cat 1325 words The law of the Plains King was that his power extended as far as he could see—or more accurately, yell, since if he called out an order to someone more than fifty metres away they would shout back, "What? Can't hear you!" before hightailing for the hills. He would proceed around his dominions on a gilded litter, surrounded by a constant panoply of nobles, jesters, strongmen and concubines, all in the most elaborate regalia. He would fall upon the spring villages and extract tribute by virtue of his divine right: wheat, corn, fish, beads—but whatever it was, he could only take as much as he and his nobles could carry. And even the nobles, if he gave them a bit too much, might take off when his back was turned. So there was a constant churn of people coming and going from the procession, doffing and donning ceremonial masks and raiments. And it was for this reason we believed we'd be able to rob him. We—that was Cowrie, Hammerhead and myself—were Sea people. We weren't party to the Plains' bargain with the stars, so we wouldn't invite calamity by defying the King's commands. But we also all had Plains grandmothers, so that in the right light, with the right makeup, we could pass for Plains ourselves. We told people we were out of the deep west. That was far away enough that people wouldn't ask difficult questions about how their second cousin's kid with the bad leg was doing. We insinuated ourselves into the royal entourage, as water-bearers and stage hands. There was no reason for anyone to find that suspicious. Plains folk, especially the young, were always worming their way toward the centre of power. There they could wear gold nose-rings, and drink the best coffee, and have their pick of beautiful women who in turn had their pick of powerful men. And the King only rarely ordered an execution. So we were among it all. Each day there would be new rituals in a new place. Cowrie worked on the sets, and Hammerhead and I carried water. I even had a Plains girl who was sweet on me. But we needed to get closer. Gold and fine blankets were not our desire. We were there to take the King's cat. Back by the Sea, Cowrie had a grandfather (also my grand-uncle and Hammerhead's aunt's cousin). A very respected elder. One night he had a dream where he was holding a pure white cat in his arms, and someone said to him, "This is the Plains King's cat." Afterwards, he started to get sick because his dream wasn't fulfilled. We take dreams very seriously by the Sea, because they come up out of the deep water to us. A dream like that needs to come true, or the dreamer gets sick in the soul. But we didn't have clan ties with the Plains, and the King wouldn't have parted with his cat in any case. Hence, us. Well, hence myself. Hammerhead was a born follower, and Cowrie was a dreamer. Head always over the horizon. And worse now, because he was pining for his young wife back home. They’d been married only a few months before we’d had to leave on this dream-quest, and now every evening Cowrie would be looking eastward with misery in his eyes fit to write a song about. So that left me to come up with the plan. In between fooling around with my Plains girl, I skulked. I learned the ways of the procession. Like our Grand Feasts back home, it was all a performance, with costumes, props, sets. But a performance that went on year round and roved the countryside, devouring. The guards of the Royal Litter had to wear these enormous demon masks and raffia cloaks. At sunset and sunrise they would take these costumes off and pass them to the next shift. A horrible, sweaty mess. That was our window. I passed the word to the others: we would move at dawn. The night before, Hammerhead and I dragged our feet with the water. Less water meant more wine, bigger headaches the morning after. Through the sluggish camp we went. Around the back of the palanquin while the guards were wrestling with their costumes. Cowrie took a prop knife he’d sharpened, and cut a slit in the curtain wall. The King was asleep, with a concubine in one arm, and the cat in the other. I snatched the cat and we ran. Up jumped the King, still in his smallclothes. "Stop!" he roared as we made our escape. True Plains folk would have had no choice. Can't disobey the King, not unless you want to see the rivers fail and the land eaten up by the sky. But that wasn't our bargain. We were shedding our disguises, becoming Sea people again, as we charged on out of the camp. Only: here came a dozen nobles, armed with spears and looking decidedly un-hungover. And here was my Plains girl, too. Apparently (I heard much later) I'd been talking in my sleep. Murmuring Sea dreams when I shouldn't have. There was a big set erected for a ritual that was meant to take place that day. "The Pacification of the Earth." For this they had a wooden tower, three men high, with a wide platform from which the King was meant to drop blood onto the parched ground. Cowrie scrambled up the tower like a woodpecker. "You won't take me or the cat alive!" he yelled. He was clutching a white bundle in his arms. In the dim light they couldn't see it was just his white robes balled up. The nobles all went after him. He started shaking the tower from the top, throwing his weight back and forth. I caught his eyes for a second. They were saying, Go on, go on. Or at least I'd like to believe so. Going on is what we did. The last thing we saw over our shoulders was the tower collapsing in a mighty wave of dust. Then we ran and ran and hardly stopped until we were home in Sea country. Pretty soon, we heard what happened to Cowrie. The Plains King made sure the news reached us. "Since you've taken my cat," the King said, "you'll be the one to replace him." They took a dozen other, less beloved cats, and skinned them to make a full-body costume, complete with ears and a tail. They've put Cowrie in it and they make him wear it day and night. And they make him be a cat. No talking, only mewing. No eating anything but raw entrails and birds' feet. He's got to lie on the King's lap during the day and sleep at the end of the bed at night. Of course, Cowrie's not subject to the King's law. So they compel him the other way. The old way, that all men know. Grand-uncle got better after we brought him the cat. He keeps it in his tent, but he doesn't play with it or pet it as much he might have. People up and down the coast say it was a brave thing Cowrie did. A thing that'll bring honour to his line for three generations. It doesn't take out any of the sting for grand-uncle, nor for Cowrie's wife or his kid. Last night I had a dream. A Sea dream. There were two parts to it. In the first, Cowrie was with his family again; they were all dozing in the heat of the day, under a broad tree by the ocean. In the second part I was dozing myself. I was curled up warm and cozy, with my claws drawn in and my tail wrapped around right to my neck. A dream like that needs to come true. I'll be leaving in the morning.
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Oct 16, 2022 23:28
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Old Gods 1071 words Rivulets of water trickled down the window as thunder growled in the distance. The rain, my mother told me, was a blessing from the gods – our lands had been wrought with a terrible drought, killing our crops and starving our people. But at the time, I didn’t believe her words; I was only eight years old, and the lightning that tore up the sky certainly didn’t lessen my fear. Nonetheless, I perched at the windowsill, eyes transfixed on the stormy scape as I waited for the weather to pass. Survival became difficult. Each year, the rains fell increasingly seldom, until the worst of the seasons came to pass. Dry and barren stood our once-lush fields, skeleton branches scraping the sky with their feeble fingers. The villagers were desperate, willing to fight even a mouse over a single grain. Any sense of trust in the community had long dissolved, and neighbors accused each other regularly of stealing food. Sometimes, I’d wake up to a ruckus, only to find that some of them had started a brawl in the center square. Frustrated with the situation, and looking to save our family from starvation, my mother made the decision to move. We packed our bags with the few belongings we treasured and began the arduous trek toward a new home. The new land was bountiful and vast, but its people were strange and unwelcoming. The whisper of our native language, the accent that slipped from our tongues, and our unfamiliar clothing were cause for discrimination. My mother worked from dawn till dusk, while my sister balanced a part-time job with her schooling. I studied diligently, working to erase any trace of my homeland, if only to fit in among my peers – but it never seemed to be enough. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I could hear a voice: a low but fervent susurration as my mother knelt in front of a small shrine she had constructed against the southern wall of the house. I knew she was praying to the old gods, the ones she believed would gift us with wealth and good fortune. She would light a candle, perhaps burn a small wooden charm in offering, and wait. She would wait for hours, days, weeks – as if she expected her diligence to produce results one day. But I believed no more in these old gods of hers than I did during that rainstorm. Before we even realized, we had acclimated to our new home. We would never be fully accepted, but at least we knew how to manage. After completing her studies, my sister moved out, seeking opportunities in a larger city. I stayed behind with my mother, taking up a local job as she worked herself into ruin. By now, her health was suffering from the countless hours she had labored to provide for our family – and yet she refused to retire, insisting that she would rather toil until her very death if it meant I would live an easier life. I arrived home from work one night to find my mother collapsed on the floor, struggling to breathe. I wanted to call a doctor, but she waved me away, insisting that she just needed some herbal tea and an offering to the gods. Ten years had passed since the day we’d left our homeland, and still she clung stubbornly to her traditions. I became worried, angry, resentful of my roots. If my culture believed I should leave an elderly woman to waste away slowly, leaving her fate in the hands of some invisible deities, then I would reject it without hesitation. I made the decision to betray my mother’s wishes and dialed the hospital. My words hit her like a hammer driving nails into a plank. “The gods cannot heal you,” I told her, and a mixture of fear and sadness welled up in her eyes. “They can’t hear us from here, or maybe they never heard us at all. You need medicine, not faith. The gods have never given us anything.” “The gods can help,” she rasped out as I waited on the phone line, “but you must be patient.” “How can I be patient?” I snapped. “They drove us from our land, led us to a place where we’re treated like savages, and now this? The only reward we’ve been granted is thanks to your hard work. And now, you’ve worked yourself sick. If there were gods who cared about us, we wouldn’t be here!” Her face grew grey at my outburst, and she pursed her lips. “The gods will be displeased with you,” she foretold, before she was interrupted by a cough that wracked her body for several minutes. When the ambulance arrived, I rang my sister. She told me she couldn’t visit, but that she would ask me later for an update. The paramedics loaded my mother onto a stretcher as I watched uneasily. The hospital discharged her with a prescription and instructions to rest for a week before going back to work. I picked up the medicine and instructed her on the dosage, and she seemed grateful but withdrawn. I attributed it to her feeling poorly, and I didn’t give it more thought. That night, I heard her tiptoe to the shrine once more. This time, her prayers were disturbed by intermittent coughing. In the morning, I found her curled up at the foot of the shrine. The candle flame had long since flickered to its death, and so had my mother. Her hand clutched a small wooden offering, and I felt sick as I ran to her room. On the bedside table was the bag of medicine, unopened. I could scarcely focus on the aftermath – the cremation, the funeral, the fatigue as my sister and I cleaned the air of death from the house. It felt surreal, like a dream I had yet to awaken from, but I knew it was just as real as everything else I’d known. And in the evening, I knelt in front of the little shrine at the southern wall of the house. I lit a candle, if only to see whether I could understand what my mother had put so much faith into. Atop the shrine stood tiny clay sculptures of strange creatures and heroic figures. The candlelight sent shadows dancing across their features, and for a moment, it seemed as if the old gods had come to life.
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Oct 16, 2022 23:38
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the brain is like a web spun by an idiot archive flerp fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jan 3, 2023 |
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Oct 17, 2022 02:50
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Lost Sea Memories 453 Words I don’t remember who I was before I wore the fancy hat, and once I did, I found myself on a raft surrounded by water on all sides! There are a couple other men and a dog on the raft with me, I feel that they are my crew, crew? Am I the leader? Captain? Yes, yes, I am the captain, but I'm only on a small raft, not on a ship. Did I have a ship and lose it? Yes, We were shipwrecked, the two men, the dog, and me were the only survivors. We built the raft out of flotsam from parts of the ship that washed up on shore. It's coming back to me, we were heading for home before the storm rose up around the ship, we struggled mightily against the storm, but in the end, the storm still won. It took us a couple weeks to build the raft. We had to resort to eating anything we got our hands on, except the dog, none of us could bear to kill it, it kept our morale up when nothing else could. More memories are coming back, it's been a few weeks on the raft. We have been surviving on catching fish from pointed sticks and using small parts of them to tempt birds down so we can kill them and drink the blood, we cannot drink from the sea, it's too salty. A couple more weeks on the raft, one of the men fell off the raft during the night, he didn't make a sound. I think he wanted to die. We're getting weaker, we can't get enough food, even the dog is nothing but skin and bones. Another memory, it's been a week, the dog has died. We ate it. Most food we have had in a good long while. A squall! This is punishment for eating the dog! We try to cling to the raft as best we can, but the last man was thrown off. I am alone. next memory, I don't know how long it's been, I can barely raise myself off the raft to look at the horizon. I see land! I see home! I am invigorated! I roll off the raft and start swimming toward land. It's hard in my weakened state, but thankfully the sea is calm. I made it! I can feel sand beneath me! It takes monumental energy to pull myself out of the surf. I raise my fist in victory! Now to rest, so tired… I pull off the hat, head hurting from the memories. I turn to the King, "The ship is gone, the cargo is lost." The King looks down and whispers, "Then all is lost."
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Oct 17, 2022 05:10
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Week 532 Syncretism 1375 words From death comes beginnings. Juche did not struggle on the dias. As the rains slicked her face, she kept her eyes open, waiting for a sign. She was in labor. A hard affair that would take her from this world, one way or another. The priestess sketched the lines of the Spider. The tumi glided over Juche’s taut belly, bronze blade sharp enough to draw blood without pressure. The priestess mumbled holy words in the language forbidden and unknown to even the royal house. Juche’s breath quickened, shallow and uneven; she knew what was next. She looked to the skies, and a curse, black as the heavens formed on her tongue. But she swallowed it, along with her pain. Ai Apaec was the recipient of the gift of her blood, now mingled with the rain, flowing freely down the channels of the Huaca, and if anything would stop the rains, it was the sky god. The priestess made the first incision, and Juche nearly cried out, as the Spider split, bisected and rent. The Spider was the decapitator, and for the briefest of thoughts, the priestess wondered if it was a heresy. But a sacrifice and a blessing at the same time was infrequent, noteworthy. The priestess pulled the babe into the world, and it was perfect. She was perfect. The priestess held the baby skyward, and the rain rinsed the ichor and sin of death from it. It wailed with strong lungs, and the priestess met Juche’s smile with her own. She laid the babe on the breast of the mother, and Juche held her tight, both cleansed. A second cry. Recoil, shock, horror. The priestess reached into the bloody lotus, the lotus that only grew this far south under the torrential rains, the lotus that creeps and grows, often only with the aid of a human hand, the lotus that is a beautiful signpost in the swamps and paddies and she pulled a second baby. The priestess cried in gasps and sobs, but as the tumi plunged into Juche’s neck, the proper ritual offering to the Spider, the mother saw the second baby sliding down the smooth channeled surface of the Huaca. It did not cry. The baby’s smashed and deformed nose, and recessed smile resembled the Jaguar himself, and the last thing Juche knew before she passed to the Beyond was the smile of her second child, the smile that struck horror into the priestess, but seemed kind and friendly and, perhaps, a bit wild—as wild a smile as a newborn sliding down a rain-slicked rock into abandonment as its mother dies could muster. And Juche returned the smile with all the spirit she had left. ___ Princess Cao had a head for facts and figures. As she grew, beautiful and tall, sharp of feature, the advisors and tutors and priests marveled at her intellect. They were also stymied by her questions. “Why does it rain?” “Why won’t it stop?” “If the canals constantly overflow, should we dig them larger, or divert the water elsewhere?” “Are the gods real?” And tutors and priests would weigh in on these questions, and often enjoyed the challenge. An autocrat who did not ask questions was doomed to failure. But their answers, “Ai Apaec wills it,” “Si will not stop it,” “Where would the water go?,” “We don’t know, but surely they are. Look at Ai Apaec as he crosses the sky every day, and Si as she crosses the sky each night, what are they but gods?,” were anodyne, pedestrian. What provoked the ire of the priests was when she asked the simplest of questions: “What happened to my mother?” None would say, none would answer. They could not punish her beyond more facts and figures, and she enjoyed reading the histories and dissecting waterworks schematics, and the recipes for bronze and if she weren’t a queen waiting in the wings, her skill with a hammer and tongs would have made her a legendary artisan. But that was not for her. Cao wanted nothing more than to know the mystery of her birth. When she was nearing thirty years, and everyone knew the ascension was near, Aldmec was a very old man, she overpowered the priest that was essentially her parent. She pinned him to the ground, and she was strong and vibrant. He was frail. She did not hurt him, but the look in her eye was more than enough. “What happened to my mother?” she asked again, with force of bicep backing up force of will. “Only Glaosem, the Harbinger, knows.” “I’ve never heard that name.” “She lives atop the holy mountain. She birthed you, but retreated from the priesthood immediately after. She may be dead for all we know, none have seen her since.” ___ Tao woke to the gentle prodding of his mother. “Get up, little one.” Tao woke, and bargained futilely for another few minutes. The hay was too comfortable. The loft was one of the few dry places on the homestead, and Tao always wondered why no one else joined him there. It was always more pleasant than a damp feather mattress on the cold, damp ground. He wiped his deformed nose on the corse spun alpaca fur cloak he wore. Mother cringed, she never liked seeing it. But it was all Tao could do. There was no devil’s bargain that would fix him. As the day wore on, he, and his adopted brothers, chopped with their copper hoes, digging deeper and farther the trench around the little house and barn. Anything to divert the rains. Tao’s was worn nearly to a nub. He worked hard. He alway found unconditional love within the little house, but Tao always felt that tinge of guilt. It was unfounded. Mric and Semlia loved him, and he knew their names. That was something only families did. So he was family. But he worked like he wasn’t. Tao wasn’t one to ask questions; until, one day, he did. “Where did I come from?” “Why am I like this?” “What happened to my mother?” And Mother and Father only had one answer: “Glaosem.” ___ Glaosem sat in meditation, rains dripping off her furs as the supplicants approached. She knew them both. The princess ascendant and the cast-off. “I know what you want, you will not find it here,” she bellowed, in an attempt to stave them off, but that was untrue, she had many supplicants before. And she saw Tao’s pug nose and the mirror image beauty that stood beside him. She knew who these two were. A princess and a pauper, royalty and a slave. The brilliant gem and the jagged, horrible slag. The cast off. Tao lived a life that Cao never did. One connected to soil and harmony. Cao was the intellect, philosophy and meter and the drums of war. — Tao met his sister, and they cried together, tears mingling in the thirty years’ rain. His hosed up face pressed against the perfect pointy beauty of hers, they kissed each others’ cheeks and knew that they were kin. It was the end of that decrepit soul, Glaosem withered. The one who sketched the Spider retreated into death. Cao and Tao looked at each other. It was the end. Si obeyed. Ai Apaec obeyed. The rains ended. The rains ended. The rains ended. That’s where the draught began.
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Oct 17, 2022 05:20
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La Sangre Del Dios Sol 1,373 Words Lane pretended to sleep while Hilde peeked through the blinds. He had cautioned her against this more than once, but she was young and had to find the limits on her own. When the sun sank below the horizon, Hilde bounded across the room towards the slab-like bed Lane pretended on and said, “It’s time! Wake up, Lane. It’s time!” “Alright, alright. Hold your horses, kid. I’m getting up.” Lane said. He stepped from the bed, pulled on his boots, and grabbed his jacket. He looked at their belongings scattered all around the motel room and muttered “settled in.” He shook his head in disapproval and fished out a cigarette. He angled it into his mouth and turned off the “I Love Lucy” re-runs that had provided a nice spot of white noise in contrast to the chaos of the last few days. He lit the cigarette and they were out the door, the hunt back on. * * * They had been driving about an hour when they rolled into a one-street, town on a stretch of land that was dotted with oil derricks in various states of disrepair. The more rusted among them had probably been out of operation for years. While the newer-looking ones, still decades old, pumped what little oil they could out of the arid terrain. “You sure Billy’s around here?” Hilde asked. The hunt had welled up the thirst in her and her started to shift beneath her face. Teeth rearranged themselves in her mouth. “I’m sure, kid.” Lane said. Billy was one of their own. After three centuries of trying to live right, he had gone feral. He’d left a trail of bodies and before it got any more out of hand, before any authorities paid real attention to what was going on, they were going to take care of it. They understood the rules. You had to feed if you wanted to survive. Strays and cattle could do for a while, but over time without real blood, human blood, you’d just end up sick or feral. So they cleaned up Billy’s messes, stayed strong through his breakdown, and were ready to do what needed to be done when they finally found him. * * * They caught the scent of blood near a farmhouse on the edge of town and pulled into the driveway. They exited the car and approached the house with preternatural speed. They could hear Billy feeding inside. His mind was lost to madness. Lane mouthed ‘follow my lead’ to Hilde and she nodded back seeming to understand. She didn’t. She burst into the room. “God drat it, Hilde!” Lane shouted. Billy turned to face them. His mouth was all wrong, elongated and round. Lane shuddered when he realized he might look like that one day. Hilde skittered across the room towards Billy like an insect and lept onto his back. She sank a mouthful of fangs into his neck. Billy clawed at her, tearing through her poncho. He struggled to pry her off of him, but when he dug his fingers into her back he had her. She howled as he ripped her off, then he slammed her through the drywall and wood to the brick exterior. The house groaned with the impact. Billy reached for Hilde in the recess of the wall, but Lane was there to catch his hand. Lane wrestled Billy to the ground just as Hilde came crawling out of the hole. She’d used too much of the gift in attacking, and didn’t have enough blood to heal. Lane needed to make this quick, but Billy was just too strong in his frenzied state. Billy had Lane pinned to the ground, and he snapped his lamprey-like mouth at him. Lane managed a headbutt that freed his hand long enough to pull a wooden stake from his jacket. He wedged it between them. Billy didn’t recognize that sliver of wood for the threat it was, and when he bore down on Lane, mouth just about to clasp around the whole of his throat, the stake punctured his ribs and pressed through to his heart. Lane tossed Billy off of him with ease and moved to scoop up Hilde. He took her over to Billy’s unfinished victim and she hungrily fed on the remains. Lane turned to Billy who sputtered ineffectually on the floor, and felt a pang of sorrow tug at his heart as he moved to finish him off. Vampires lived a long time, but they weren’t immortal. They grew up just like anyone else did. That’s why Lane took Hilde in. It’s why Billy took Lane in. It’s why they had to put Billy to rest. * * * Lane and Hilde cleaned up, then drove back to their room in Hobbs, planning to to enjoy creature comforts for one more night before they got back to the road, but as they were about to pull into the motel, Lane noticed a squad car parked outside their room. An officer was shining a light into their window. “Time to go?” Hilde asked. “Yeah, kid… looks like we overstayed our welcome. That mess Billy made back in Houston didn’t do us any favors. Going to have to ditch the car soon. Lay low for a while.” Hilde groaned. “Why’s it like this?” Lane drove past the hotel, eyes fixed on the tarmac and the markers that slipped by like every second of his life had. He knew immediately what Hilde was asking. “Long time ago I asked Billy the same thing. He hemmed and hawed in that bullshit way he always did, but eventually, he said something about the oldest vampire he knew telling him some legend that had been passed down from blood to blood over the centuries.” “He said we came from somewhere in South America, back when the world was still attuned to the gods. That type of thing. He said that originally, our line of vampires walked in the sun because we were born of a sun god.” “Daywalkers and sun gods?” Hilde asked in disbelief. “That’s how the legend goes at least. Billy said the sun god ruled other gods and people alike, but he had become obsessed with a prophecy about his death.” “He went to the underworld and back, to the peaks of the highest mountains, and to depths of the deepest oceans in search of a way to prevent his death, but he was only led to the one who would ensure it, the god of the moon.” “Sounds like a fairy tale,” Hilde said. “Well, we’re here aren’t we?” Hilde thought about this and nodded, continuing to listen. “When the sun god confronted the moon god about the prophecy, the moon god told him that the prophecy was true, that they had to fulfill it. That they, like all people, were caught up in cycles within cycles. That gods too served some greater will, and what must be must be.” “What happened then?” “The sun god refused and they clashed, but he was too weak. He was forced to escape to the realm of mortals where he enjoyed ruling and influencing the lives of the people for centuries until one day he went too far.” “He had his people conquer a people in service to the moon, and his warriors sacrificed thousands of them within minutes. The moon eclipsed the sun shortly after and the moon god let loose its retribution. The moon raised its dead people who in turn devoured or infected the sun god's chosen pishtaco warriors, forever seizing their power over the day. The Sun God suddenly devoid of followers, the font of his power, ceased to be. The prophecy fulfilled, and the descendants of his chosen are bound to the night to this day.” “So we’re cursed…” Hilde said. “Looks that way,” Lane replied. “Does it get any easier?” She asked. “Most of the time we’ve gotten by without trouble, yeah? Not every week is like this week.” “One day, will I have to deal with you the same way we dealt with Billy?” Lane just mussed her hair and focused back on the road. His non-answer told her everything she needed to know.
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Oct 17, 2022 05:52
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