|
crabrock fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jul 25, 2017 |
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 22:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Sep 19, 2024 19:49 |
|
|
Thunderdome Week CCLX: Empty Spaces   There's a story behind everything. I have a certain fondness for derelict, abandoned spaces - still and sterile, or reclaimed by nature. Here's an album of forty such places. Pick one (or ask for an assignment) and write me a story about it. You can write about whatever you want (you know, so long as it falls within standard Dome operating procedure - no fanfiction, erotica), but your picture should determine the central elements of your story and setting. Don't tell me about something that could happen anywhere but just so happens to take place here; tie it all together. Similarly, don't feel bound by extraneous particulars. This Japanese amusement park closed in 2006 due to low ticket sales, but your story needn't involve struggling finances or Japan or anything not suggested by the picture itself.  Once you've claimed your picture, that picture is yours. First-come, first-served. No repeats. A few places have multiple photographs, though never more than two. You may claim only one, and no one gets the other one. Your word count is a cool 800. Flashrules available upon request. You have until Friday night, midnight (PST), to sign up with submissions due Sunday at noon. Normally I'd give you guys a little more time but my Monday's gonna be swamped since I'm packing for a trip.  The Thunderdome Archaeological Society Board of Directors Bad Seafood DMBoogie Jitzu People Who Belong In A Museum Big Scary Monsters - Church steeple sticking out of a frozen lake SurreptitiousMuffin - Lake house between red trees ThirdEmperor - Obsolete power station; a man's home is his castle, but it shouldn't have to be a fortress Jay W. Friks - Kaishai's house after an earthquake Agent355 - Dusty garage Super Sweet Best Pal - Stairs to nowhere Crabrock - Tiger root canal A New Study Bible! - Piano tree Chairchucker - Sinking streets; the neighbors were terrifyingly human Sebmojo - Pier pressure; your story must be presented as a palindrome and your protagonist is an organ grinder with a decrepit monkey which can only speak in German proverbs Uranium Phoenix - Overgrown chapel Djeser - Train track flower garden Electric Owl - Doll factory; TOXX Fumblemouse - Spiral stair in azure; the girl in the mirror knew everything Thranguy - Forest of cars; they flourished in the forgotten places Solitair - Shredded theater; it wasn't illegal, not back then Magnificent7 - Sunken submarine shipyard; the Yelp review was terrible Chili - Floating forest Hawklad - Footprints in the reactor Wizgot - Flooded mall BeefSupreme - Remote island fortress sans island Fleta Mcgurn - Rickety coaster in the woods; it began when the thieves stole fire from Heaven; TOXX MysticalHaberdasher - Empty theater lobby Sparksbloom - Dirty waterslide; TOXX Mrenda - Red house on the lake RandomPaul - Conga line of ships; she kept her memories in jars Obliterati - Parish full of statues Flerp - Asylum island Kaishai - Bus in the woods Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Jul 29, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 22:14
|
|
|
Please read the whole prompt post and not just the bold parts, you know who you are.crabrock posted::snypa: 
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 22:15
|
|
|
 I'll take this one I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 22:26
|
|
|
In with
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 22:36
|
|
|
In. Assign me a photo and a dumb flash rule plz.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 22:37
|
|
|
ThirdEmperor posted:In.  A man's home is his castle, but it shouldn't have to be a fortress.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 22:46
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 23:02
|
|
|
 In for the first time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2017 23:54
|
|
|
 Are there stairs in your beach?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 00:08
|
|
|
i'm in, but give me a pic because im too lazy to go through and make sure i don't snag a repeat.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 00:15
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 00:26
|
|
|
Gimme a picture.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 00:39
|
|
|
in, pic me up
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 00:41
|
|
|
In.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 00:47
|
|
|
 In with the Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 00:55
|
|
|
crabrock posted:i'm in, but give me a pic because im too lazy to go through and make sure i don't snag a repeat.  Chairchucker posted:Gimme a picture.  sebmojo posted:in, pic me up
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 01:14
|
|
|
in, with: Question, do the locations have to be derelict in the story? Also  b/c i'm a bad boy(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 01:48
|
|
|
Can I be in too? Please your Enthroned Seafoodship, can I pick this one? If you gotta flash rule me for my inexcusable presumption, that'd be OK, I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 01:56
|
|
|
In with And a flash rule please.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 02:26
|
|
|
In with and a flash rule.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 04:21
|
|
|
I'm in. GIve me a picture of pure emptiness and poo poo. I love the empty. And gently caress it. Flash me a rule as well. I work best under the confines of restrictions and poo poo. IF I work at all.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 04:36
|
|
|
Dig the prompt. I'm in with: Floating forest, Sydney, Australia
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 04:52
|
|
|
I'm IN with the footprints in the nuclear reactor:
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 05:20
|
|
|
week 259 crits these are all gonna be pretty short because I need to get back to procrastinating on my wizard week crits. Gorda I think this is relatively successful. The centerpiece is the chair contraption that was specifically designed to chuck dead bodies into the ocean. It's a weird but salient detail that says a lot about how bleak the situation in Gorda is. If I were giving this a line crit, I'd correct some awkward wording, but I'm not so I won't. Probably my personal favorite of the week. No Time Hmm. I liked this one until the end. I am not entirely sure why reversing a few seconds would invoke this old car crash. In that sense, it has the same message that most time travel stories have: if you gently caress with time, it'll gently caress you with you. The turnaround from "haHA we are gods" to "oh poo poo we're not gods and never will be" felt too forced. Not bad overall, I just didn't get any sense of the logic behind the consequences of the protagonist's time fuckery. Another Life That Mattered And that boy was Albert Einstein. This is kind of neat, but ultimately too on the nose for me to say I actually enjoyed it. I don't like the apparent point of view of the story, which is that if only this kid hadn't been senselessly killed, he would've become some figure of great importance. Not that there's anything wrong with that point of view, per se, I just wish the story had given me more to feel than "boy this sure is a shame, huh?" Like, instead of mourning this one kid's lost chance, the story could pull back and give the reader something more to chew on. FWIW my co-judges liked this a bit more than I did, I think, so do with that what you will. Violation I like the first line aside from the repetition of 'body', which felt awkward. This story is similar to the previous story in that it's a pretty bald look at an atrocity (in this case, hacking as rape), but I feel a stronger connection to this character in spite of the tiny word count. Once again, there's not much here beyond the horrible thing happening to the protagonist, but I found it tolerable. I think the reason is because the language in this story is kind of doing triple duty; it's letting me know this world is firmly sci-fi, tells me about the character, and still manages to create a mini-arc while doing those things. Strobe Hmm. Not much to say here. It reads like you took a moment and chopped it up a bit. When I put the sequence of events together in my head, it amounts to "Someone is looking for a girl in a bar, gets punched out in front of her, girl is not impressed". When you're playing with time, it's not enough to just chop it up into bits. It reads like style for the sake of style (even though I know in this case it's because of the prompt) because the jumps in time don't challenge my expectations or change the flow of events in any way. The Man Who Screams at the Sun I like this. It could be about man's eternal dissatisfaction with life. It could be about art. It could just be about a man standing on a mountain and screaming at the sun. I like that the screaming man is both kind of pathetic but also elevated and possibly beautiful. Regardless of the intention of this piece, I enjoy the image, so it had high marks from me. Slowdown This is less "time out of joint" than Steeltoedsneakers' "Strobe". This is quite literally a moment, just slowed down. There's nothing salient about the image. That said, these are actually some of the better words I've seen from you. I was sad to give this a loss because I think you were pretty clear and concise with this piece, which IMO is marked improvement over some of your other works. "Her mouth bellowed" is a really awkward phrase. The transitions between each moment of the story felt too matter of fact: "The sound came first.."; "Next, his body..."; "A new sound reached his ears..." When I read this story, it's in the same voice as someone describing a cake recipe. Cursed spite So I guess there's something to this, because my co-judges both liked it a lot. For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around the gimmick with the tense fuckery. Best as I can tell, this betrayal is unfolding across the past, present, and future. Maybe? I was too embarrassed to ask djeser to explain it to me. Unformed There were a bunch of stories this week that basically used the narrative to describe recent topical issues. In this case, you use a fantasy setting to illustrate the experience of dysphoria because of the body one is born into. I was certainly happy when Gracchus escaped the form that was making him miserable. The story works best as a kind of wish fulfillment, I think. It's nice to imagine a world where you could be one magical procedure away from the body you belong in. I know a lot of people who would kill for that reality. If that was the goal of this story, great. If it was meant to convey more than that, it needed to have done a little bit more work. Unfumbling I like this better than your other story, though I think I have a higher tolerance for nonsense than I do for time gimmicks. And this is pure nonsense. It's fun and cute and cheeky in how meta it was. I wanted to be mad at it, I really did. I think you could lose "adorkable" because it doesn't fit. It sounds like you, the narrator, are showing through and don't trust that your scene is implicitly amusing. Eternity in an Hour Hmm. I like this piece in theory. It shows the wearing down of a relationship through repetition. What didn't work for me so much was how Rebecca took eons to notice a sesame seed In Janet's teeth. I feel like you could have pushed the horror of the situation even harder. It's kind of blasé right now; I'd be more interested in reading about how someone learns to cope when all they have is this one moment and their imagination. You touch on it, but then the last paragraph is all kind of editorializing. One Last Kiss "Halfway through his latest punch" has an odd ring to it. Doesn't immediately tell me much about the situation. In fact, the physicality of that whole first para feels off to me. Otherwise this is...hmm. I feel like the couple, frozen in that moment of bliss, are supposed to contrast the other bits of scenery. Also, "A nod could let it go" made me wonder if the narrator is the cause of this. It would certainly explain why he's still moving around. But the beginning makes it seem like it just...happens? Homecoming This wasn't originally one of my high picks, but I came around to it. It does everything with such an expertly light touch that I kind of missed some of the nuance on my first read. Full disclosure, I'm kind of spoiled from seeing you talk about this story with dockloc. But your confirmation that the ambiguity is intentional helped me appreciate how subtly done that was. I like that you establish in few words that the narrator ultimately does what's right for his community (letting them have their hero) than what is "right" in more nebulous terms. Like, in a perfect world, people who committed evil acts wouldn't be carried home like heroes, but sometimes a family or a community needs any hero they can get. The narrator knows this, and makes the difficult choice to protect them from the truth. While, as I said, it took me a little while to come around to this, I am glad I did because it's a really good and tight little piece.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 05:40
|
|
|
I'm IN with the flooded mall
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 07:12
|
|
|
I'm in. How can I pass up a creepy derelict Russian naval testing facility?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 07:51
|
|
|
Fumblemouse posted:If you gotta flash rule me for my inexcusable presumption, that'd be OK, I guess. Thranguy posted:And a flash rule please. Solitair posted:and a flash rule. magnificent7 posted:I'm in. GIve me a picture of pure emptiness and poo poo. I love the empty.  The Yelp review was terrible.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 07:57
|
|
|
In, , please give me a pic and a flash rule.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 11:03
|
|
|
I'm in. Pic, please.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 15:24
|
|
|
In. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2017 21:10
|
|
|
Fleta Mcgurn posted:In, It began when the thieves stole fire from Heaven. MysticalHaberdasher posted:I'm in. Pic, please. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2017 08:17
|
|
|
Flash me up doof, as fucky as u like, i believe we have uh history in that respect
sebmojo fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jul 27, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2017 10:38
|
|
|
Edit: Cannae be waiting for timezone shenanigans. I'm impatient and want to get my drinking write on. Gonna go with this.  Mrenda fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jul 27, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2017 11:49
|
|
|
flashruleme
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2017 06:58
|
|
|
in with the boats image, and a flashrule please. Just 800 words right? I think I'm anxious and tense enough to get that much out tonight. Edit:
RandomPauI fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jul 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2017 07:25
|
|
|
sebmojo posted:Flash me up doof, as fucky as u like, i believe we have uh history in that respect Also, your protagonist is an organ grinder with a decrepit monkey which speaks only in German proverbs. Chairchucker posted:flashruleme RandomPauI posted:in with the boats image, and a flashrule please. Just 800 words right? I think I'm anxious and tense enough to get that much out tonight.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2017 11:00
|
|
|
Electric Owl posted:Question, do the locations have to be derelict in the story? Your location should preferably be derelict at the time of your story, yes, but I will accept locations in pristine condition if the story is about how they came to be abandoned.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2017 19:34
|
|
|
To reiterate, you are only beholden to the previous post if you deliberately try to eschew the abandoned, decaying setting part of the prompt.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2017 20:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Sep 19, 2024 19:49 |
|
|
In. Picture, please.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2017 00:52
|
|
