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MockingQuantum posted:In for 1k, gimme a pair and a fact Motionless Sky On Total Separation Methods for Out of Body Experiences Exercise 17. Get into a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine a duplicate of yourself standing directly in front of you, or hovering directly above you. Since it is often very hard to visualize your own face looking at you -- imagine your double with its back to you. Observe as much detail of your imagined double as possible. As your imaginary double becomes more solid and realistic, you might begin to experience uncertainty about your actual physical position. Build on this feeling by asking yourself: 'Where am I?' or 'Who am I?' Once the double is clear and stable, try to transfer your active consciousness into it and see what happens. This method could lead you into initial experiences of bi-location.
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Sep 21, 2022 01:51
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Can I get an Occult Fact as well?
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Sep 21, 2022 02:37
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Chernobyl Princess posted:Can I get an Occult Fact as well? On making a Dead Man's Rope Use a rope to obtain nine measurements from a dead man’s corpse. Measure each of the following three times: from the elbow to the longest finger from the shoulder to the tip of the longest finger from the head to the toe Keep the rope. Anyone subsequently measured with it will suffer misery, misfortune, or worse.
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Sep 21, 2022 03:43
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Chairchucker posted:Dragon Hunt My first thought after finishing the story is how the flow of the plot is a little weird. You have a significant timeskip, and some lengthy reminiscing of what transpired between Part A and Part B, so the latter is almost entirely exposition. I don't think it's particularly bad, as it serves the story's point--even if she had slain the dragon, Francine is bitter about losing Graham, finding her success empty. I don't feel that Francine's attachment to Graham is well-earned--they mostly traded light dialogue and quips in Part A. Which makes the bitter thought she has at the end lack in impact. Perhaps it would have more effect if the stakes had been communicated more keenly. The story mentions a job... was it that important? why didn't they just run? Graham said he was sick of seeing towns burn, and he sent Francine away to finish the job even when he was dying from his wounds. So there was a heroic streak in him. Why was Francine tagging along anyway? She didn't even seem particularly enthusiastic about the job. Not fleshing them out sounds like a missed opportunity.
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Sep 22, 2022 06:25
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signing up for the 1k fun run e: oh yeah, the words i rolled were macabre regret
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Sep 24, 2022 07:26
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Alrighty! Signups closed. Get writing!
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Sep 24, 2022 08:16
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Idle Amalgam forgot to announce me in the thread but I am running co-judge on this one. Beware.
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Sep 24, 2022 10:16
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Correct. Bad Seafood is a saint and they're going to help me analyze, decrypt and perhaps even unmask the intent behind your words so do your best!
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Sep 24, 2022 15:47
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Love Adjustment 607 Words Get your love adjusted here! Shouted the bright sign above the nondescript storefont. Intrigured, I walked in and was greeted by a short old bald man behind a counter covered in dried herbs. How cliche I thought to myself. Since I was in here anyway, I figured I'd humor myself by asking the man what he meant by getting your love adjusted. "I can make it so you can love someone more deeply, say if you're a little unsure about the relationship or if you want to break up with your partner and don't want to be guilty about it, I can lower your love for them so you don't care." The man said with a gleam in his eye. "That second thing sounds awful!" I retorted. "Eh, I'm a good business man, I do what will make the customer happy." The man shrugged while still having the gleam in his eye. "I know you didn't just come in here to play 20 questions with me, something about love adjustment intrigued you." "Well, I have a fiance, Marcus, that I feel that I could love more." I said. "Ah! I knew it!" The little man exclaimed, "How much more do you want to love Marcus?" "Uhhhhh, about 50% more?" "Here," he flicked a small green pill at me "Take it while looking at Marcus, you're love for him can grow stronger after the pill bumps it up, but will never go lower than that. Also it'll be 20 bucks, please." Skeptically, I handed the strange little man a 20 and then headed home. I honestly forgot about the pill for the next few days, until I was doing laundry and pulled it out of my pocket. I pondered it in my hand for a few moments and remembering the little man's words took the pill while looking at Marcus but while his back was turned. I didn't feel anything immediately, but over the next couple of days I started to feel… different, I wanted to spend more time with him, cared more than I already did about him, thought more about him when he wasn't around. I hated to admit it, but the pill worked! I don't know if it was 50% more, but how can you quantify that anyway? Marcus also noticed the difference between him and me. I thought everything was going well until a month before the wedding, when Marcus came home, sat me down, and told me that he couldn't lie to me anymore. He had found someone else. He had fallen for a man at work. Marcus got up after that and just walked out the door. He was pretending! That son of a bitch! Stringing me along! I would say that I was heartbroken, but I wasn't, I couldn't be! That drat pill! I still loved him! I was going to go back to that old man and get a pill to fix this so I can forget that rotten rear end in a top hat, Marcus. I marched determinedly back to the store to get another pill, but when I got there, the sign was gone and the store was locked and empty. Starting to panick, I ran into the store next to it and asked the employee there what had happened, where was the love adjustment store? "Oh that place? A few months back, a disgruntled ex-boyfriend of at customer killed his ex then killed that little old man for selling her a pill that made her fall out of love for him." The employee stated. I thanked the employee, walked outside, and screamed! I screamed until the police came and took me away.
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Sep 26, 2022 01:18
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Driver Training 1550 words GUILTLESS GIANTS, CUMBERSOME DISCUSSION Flash: dead man’s hex Sandy looked at her hands while her family argued around her. “You can’t ask her to do this! It’s not fair!” Mama Courtney stuck up for her. Trying to absorb some of the pressure of the rest of the family. “We can.” Father Brian said, harshly. He said most things about Sandy harshly. “She’s old enough to consent to medical procedures, she can do this.” “She’s eleven!” Cousin Dani spoke up next. “I was eleven when I started in the fields. TruGene’ll have her working soon enough, and getting an early start will help her work credits.” It was true, what Dani said, but they weren’t saying the thing they actually meant, which was that if Sandy consented to the driver training program, she’d single-handedly earn enough work credits to wipe out the family’s debt to the TruGene store. They could be employees instead of indentures, and all it would cost is one pre-teen girl having a node implanted in her brain. She’d drive the harvesters, the sprayers, the big tractors, and if she was good enough she could even drive the trucks that brought food from ag corp country to the sprawling megacities of the east coast. “Have any of you talked to drivers?” Courtney said. “They’re a bunch of weirdos.” Brain scoffed. “So she’ll fit right in. Look, Sandy,” he rounded on her. “This is our shot. We may never have another one. The corp doesn’t invite just [i]anyone[i] to do driver training. You’d be helping out the whole family if you did it. We would be employees. We could get benefits, real benefits, not just things like premium shopping opportunities. Your little brothers could get signing bonuses. This is our first big shot since the indenture started.” Sandy didn’t raise her eyes from the floor. “But they’d cut into my brain,” she said, softly. One of her older cousins laughed. “Exactly! Not like a part of you anyone would miss.” “She’ll think about it,” Brian said, patting her on the shoulder. “She’ll think about it, right?” Sandy glanced at his eyes for a moment. The pressure of his gaze forced her to look down again. She nodded. “I’ll think about it.” ___ She never really got a chance to think about it. She never really got a chance to think about anything. Sandy was one of eleven kids in a household of twenty six people, and had been born at an infortuitous time. The elder child nearest to her age was four years older. The younger child nearest to her was five years younger. She was too old to play with the babies and too young to play with the teens, and the adults didn’t really have time for her either. Everyone was more used to treating her as a topic of conversation rather than as a participant, and the attention was overwhelming. “If I do it maybe Father Brian will be nicer to me,” she said to Papa Drew. Drew winced a little at that. “Baby girl,” he said in his soft, gentle voice. “Don’t do anything based on the idea that Brian will approve. He’s an rear end in a top hat, sweetie.” Sandy giggled at the naughty word. She brought it up to Mama Courtney while she brushed Sandy’s hair. Mama Courtney didn’t miss a beat. “Maybe,” she said. “Either way, I’ll be proud of you.” Her cousins were more direct about their expectations. “Do it,” Dani told her, arms crossed over their chest. Sandy wasn’t sure if they were hugging themself or trying to look tough. Maybe it was both. “You should do it. It’ll help all of us. And TruGene’ll take care of you. Drivers are valuable.” Sandy thought TruGene was a storybook giant, waiting to eat kids who climbed too high too quickly. Dani dismissed this as anti-corp propaganda. “You can’t believe those cranks, kid.” Father Brian was not nicer to her in this interim. He avoided her more than he had before. The one time their paths crossed, he looked at her like she was a cockroach. “You won’t do it,” he said, his voice pitched low so none of the rest of the family could hear him. “I don’t even think you can do it. You’re weak.” It was this that made up her mind. She wasn’t anything special, but she wasn’t weak, and she’d prove it. ____ TruGene never gave her the chance to be nervous. Once Mama Courtney and Sandy signed the paperwork, they whisked her away to driver training, where she was sat with a bunch of other kids her age for the first time in her life. The teachers told them all about various vehicles that they could drive, which was boring, and they were given special headsets that let them play racing games with their minds, which was not. Sandy decided that she liked driver training, that she was good at it. Not everyone was. After the first week of training, Sandy realized that kids were disappearing. She watched the teachers tapping kids on the shoulder after games, taking them by the hand and leading them away. Nobody told them anything, which meant that a few of the slightly older kids were spreading the rumor that the kids who washed out got turned into fertilizer for the fields. But no. They were just being sent home. Sandy wasn’t sure which would be worse. She hadn’t known life could be this good. Sandy spent her twelf birthday in the belly of the giant. She was strapped to a table with wide, soft straps that kept her from moving any part of her while she was being measured. Elbow to fingertip. Shoulder to fingertip. Head to toe. Shin to toe. Hip to toe. The ratios, she was told, were important for the brain mapping. She held as still as she possibly could. Then, as was custom by this point, it was into the MRI. She was just settling in when the intercom clicked on “-eel bad for these poor kids.” Sandy tried hard not to react. She wanted to hear this. A voice farther away from the microphone muttered something unintelligible. Then the voice spoke again. “There’s only four slots and they pulled eight kids to get the surgery. What’s going to happen to the ones who don’t make it? There’s no plan.” More muttering. Something that sounded like “control group.” “That’s ethically hosed and you know it. They’re testing new technology on kids and hoping that it’ll work.” “These kids don’t have lives,” the other voice said. “They don’t have futures. They were all generational indentures, even the washouts are going home with enough credits to feed people for a year. We’re doing them favors.” “We’re cutting them open and shoving new tech in and crossing our fingers and praying nothing bad happens and we’re telling ourselves we’re doing them favors because they’re poor and because it would be inconvenient if we didn’t.” The second voice spoke up again, disdainful. “What, are you going to protest? Not do the operations? Don’t lecture me on the moral high ground when we both know you’re not going to take it.” “If I did they’d just get a worse surgeon to do it,” the first voice said. They sounded resigned. “Guilt is a luxury we can’t afford. You’ve got t-” The intercom clicked off again. Sandy stared, unmoving, at the blank, smooth whiteness of the MRI as it clanged around her. Only one thing from the conversation seemed important. There were only four spots. There were eight of them left. She had to get one of them. She couldn’t go back and prove Father Brian right. She went under the knife the next day. ___ “Sandy? Can you hear me?” “I can. Why can’t I see you?” “You’re still trying to use your eyes. Use the cameras.” The world blurred into color. Orderly rows of green and brown. Something itched, painfully. She tried to scratch it and the voice spoke up again, hurriedly. “No! No, we don’t need to move the boom right now. Good job finding it though. Record time.” Sandy thought. It was hard to think. “I’m in a harvester? Already?” The itch didn’t stop. She tried not to think about it. “Yup. One of the new combines.” The voice sounded proud. “You’re doing great, Sandy. We’re going to keep it simple today. Just drive up and down the row, straight as you can.” Sandy tried to grind her teeth. Her threshing cylinder made a noise. She stopped trying to grind her teeth. There were so many parts to think about. Slowly, agonizingly, she rolled forward. Turning the wheels took so much thought, so much effort that it almost made her forget the itch. Almost. She’d been bitten by horseflies as a younger child. It felt like that. But all over. All over what was once her skin. When she got back to her starting position, three hours later, they switched off her implant and dropped her back into her body. It was like being dropped off a cliff. She stared, unseeing, trying to use cameras instead of eyes for a full five minutes afterward. She didn’t tell them about the itch. She'd come this far. Sandy had too much to prove to let pain stop her now.
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Sep 26, 2022 03:14
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The Still of the Night archive MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Dec 10, 2022 |
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Sep 26, 2022 04:24
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Archived.
Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Dec 24, 2022 |
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Sep 26, 2022 04:35
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Week 529 Entry Well-groomed Ground, Bone Birds Skies and Lawns 1880 Words "Dad…" a distant voice calls out in the black of night. I roll over in my bed and convince myself that it is nothing. My eyes close, and I hear a faint shuffle. I open my eyes and shout, "Holy poo poo!" as Sona, my four-year-old daughter, appears inches away from where I'm sleeping. She takes a step back in fear, and I quickly gather myself. "I'm sorry, baby girl, I got a little scared." I look at my phone and see it's 3 AM. Her eyes crinkle, and she wipes away a tear. "There's a man outside." "Huh? Outside where?" "Outside my window." "Your window?" I ask. "Yeah, for real life!" She insists. I swing my legs out of bed, and she grabs my hand and pulls me forward. We arrive at her bedroom, and she rushes to the window and grabs the sill. "Look." She says. I rest my hand on her shoulder and squat down to her level. The moon is hidden by clouds, and only the light posts in our quiet suburb light up the streets. Right across from our house, in full work clothes, and on all fours in the small patch of green between his sidewalk and the curb is old Emory Jones. His face is inches away from the grass, and his fingers fiddle with the freshly cut blades. An orange work bucket sits next to him. "What's he doing?" I blurt out. "I don't know. I heard a noise and looked out and saw him there." "How long has he been out there, bud?" I ask. "A long time, like fifteen hundred hours." "He's just been out there crawling in the grass?" "Yeah." I look back at Emory, his Hummer is parked in the driveway, and the fluorescent glow from the streetlight reflects off the top of his bald head as he pinches the grass, lifts his finger over the bucket and drops what appears to be nothing into it. I look back at Sona and see the squinted, confused look we share when something just isn't right. "I know you're working on being brave…." "I am brave," she cuts me off. "Yeah, you are. But you know even brave girls still sleep in their mom and dad's bed every now and then." She doesn't need telling twice. She scoots off to join her mom in bed. I'm left with Emory Jones washed in white light doing god knows what in his yard. I watch him toil with the grass for I don't know how much longer, but I'm woken up, when the sun is shining, on the floor of Sona's bedroom by my wife, Michelle. ***** I explain what I saw over breakfast, and Sona backs me up. "Mommy, it was crazy, and I just don't know what to do about it," she says as she stirs chocolate chips into her yogurt. "Well, what were you doing up in the first place?" Michelle asks. "I heard a noise. It sounded like every kind of paintbrush mixed up, but not in water." Michelle catches my eye, and we smile at each other. "So you heard that noise, got up, and saw Mr. Jones in his yard?" "Mmmhm," she says as she spoons some yogurt into her mouth. A gob falls onto her dress. "Well, I’m off to work. Good thing your dad is off today. Seems like a good mystery for him to solve while you're at school." Michelle wipes the yogurt off Sona with a napkin, kisses her atop the head, and then plants one on me. But I don't. Too much drat paperwork from my job and those candies on my phone aren't going to crush themselves. ***** Sona calls for me again and wakes me from my sleep. "Is Mr. Jones out there again?" I ask as I open up the door. "I can't find Abby Bear." "Huh?" Sona is crying and crawling around her room, looking for her favorite stuffy. "Oh, we'll find it, baby girl, no problem." I walk over to the window to check and see if Emory is out there again, but I get distracted. A grinding, scraping sound echoes above his house, where a dizzying cyclone of bird skeletons swims through the sky. There must be hundreds of them, some the size of hummingbirds, others eagles, all in a lazy ascent toward the moon. I gasp at the horrific circus on display, and as I do, the lights click on in the room. "That'll help us find her!" Sona calls out. I look down from the birds at Emory's front yard, and he's staring directly at me. "Turn off the lights!" I shout. "Abby Bear!" Sona squeals in delight. Emory hasn't broken eye contact with me this whole time, and his nostrils flare. I don't know what to do, so I shrug. Sona turns off the lights, unknowingly concealing us again. He's still staring at our window. Sona asks what I'm looking at. I glance back up, and the birds are flying ever higher and will soon be too far away to see. "Nothing, baby girl," I pull her blinds down. "Get back to bed, OK?" ***** I walk downstairs to the sound of a skillet scraping over the stove. "Sona," Michelles call out, "what shape do you want your pancakes?" "Rainbow Unicorns, mommy, thanks!" Sona is coloring at her desk. "And you, babe?" She asks me. "Huh?" "Your pancakes, what shape? You want a unicorn too?" "Oh yeah, that's fine." I walk over to the front door and look through the peephole. Emory is standing in his yard, looking down at his grass. "Babe?" Michelle calls out. "Can you walk to the Martin's and get our syrup back? All we've got is that Butterworth stuff in the pantry." "I like that one!" Sona calls out. "Sona, you can grow up to be anything you want and do anything you want with your life. But, no child of mine will have bad taste in syrup." Sona frowns at her and rolls her eyes. "Fine." I sinch my robe and slip on some flip flops. "On it, back in a few." I haven't told Michelle about what I've seen, primarily because I don't want her running off with Sona for fear that her husband will start licking the cat while singing The Camptown Ladies. Besides, I don't even know what I'd tell her. Honey, I saw a pack of skeleton birds flying over our deranged neighbor's house. Somehow feels like a statement in need of evidence or at least some follow-up. I open the front door and play dumb. I wave at Emory. He doesn't wave back, but his lips are moving quickly, and it seems like he's muttering something to himself. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I slowly approach his front yard. He doesn't seem to notice me and continues muttering. I can hear him now: fragments, and shards, and bones, and fragments, and shards… I pause in shock, and Emory sees me. I offer a wave that goes unrequited and walk off. ***** My alarm rings at 2AM. I go downstairs and open the front door. Emory's out there again, and so are the birds, winging their featherless bones upward. "Hi, neighbor," Emory smirks at me. I walk over to him. "What is this all about, Emory?" "I'm keeping my yard clean! Don't you harass me, y'hear!" "But what's going on? Why are there---" "gently caress if I know! What am I, a dead bird scientist?" Confusion and exasperation swim through my mind, and I turn around to walk home. "Your lawn is looking a little foresty, by the way." He calls out to me. I open the front door, and Sona is standing in the hall. "Were you talking to Mr. Jones? I heard you." "Yeah, sorry baby girl didn't mean to wake you. Want a glass of oat milk before you go back to bed?" "With chocky?" She asks. "Of course," I smile. ***** Sona takes a long sip of her chocolate milk and puts her cup down at the kitchen table, where we're both sitting. "What were those things," she asks. "What things?" I ask, knowing drat well what she's asking about. "I thought I saw something over Mr. Jones House." I watch her take another sip. She brings the cup down and licks the cool brown milk off her upper lip. "Want to sleep in our room tonight?" I ask her. She takes the bait and forgets about her question. ***** I wake up the next night—and the one after that—to stare at the birds. I do so from our basement egress window, where I can both not be bothered by seeing, or being seen by, Emory. It seems like the parade swells in size with each passing night. It goes on like this for a week, and I keep watching. One night, the birds wing off not upwards but to the side. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I sneak into Sona's room to see what they're up to. The parade is spreading. Not just to the houses beside Emory's but others in the neighborhood. I hear a crunching scraping sound again. It's right over us. They're here. They wake up Sona, and I quickly yank the blinds down. "Dad?" She asks, half asleep. "Hey, I was just checking on you. You OK?" She gets up and starts walking to the window. "What's outside? Why'd you close the blinds so fast?" "It's nothing!" I shout a little too loudly. "Want to sleep in our room?" ***** I lie awake next to my sleeping wife and daughter. Sleep isn't going to find me anytime soon, and I know it. I hear the scraping above the house lessen and assume the birds are beginning their nightly ascent to the heavens. I breathe a sigh of relief, but I know they'll be back tomorrow night. How am I going to deal with them? I'll need to start picking bones out of the yard like Emory. Following his example and doing anything that resembles him sickens me. I consider this for only a moment as suddenly, a skeleton bird crashes through our window. Shards of glass fall onto the carpet as the bird hurtles into the wall and falls down into a heap of bones. Sona and Michelle wake up screaming, and I'm already over to the pile of bones on my hands and knees, frantically trying to scoop them up. "What is that daddy!?" Sona yells at me. "Nothing! I think a rock or something just flew through the window." "That's not a rock!" Michelle looks at me like I'm stupid. I regret not telling her about this sooner, but now I don't see any way around the truth. I unfold my hands and reveal the bones I'm holding. "Bones?" Sona asks. "Are those bones?" "They are kiddo. But more than that, they're a problem." "A problem?" She asks. "Yeah, and it's a problem I'll probably never be able to fix." I let go of my hopes and dreams of keeping her safe and cry. Moments later, I feel the warmth of my wife and daughter sitting next to me on either side, and I pull them in close. "It's OK, dad." Sona says to me, "I'll fix it someday."
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Sep 26, 2022 05:27
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Crabby Ghost Enter the Ghost Crab 783 Words A simple tune, the rave. The kind that, despite backgrounds and ideologies, makes a person want to dance. Its emotional response could go from a simple moving of the foot, to making sporadic movements. But there is one emotion that one does not normally associate with the rave. Fear. In a small town in Maryland, a woman was running. She was running in a way that if people were watching, some would probably think, “For fucks sake.” While some may also think, “Yes. For gently caress’s sake.” It was not known what she was running from, just that she was apparently running from a certain ravish tune. It almost seemed as if she was running past the same place multiple times, and past one or two boom microphones. After a little while, she eventually tripped suggestively, and saw what was chasing her. She let out a scream so unnatural, one could possibly consider it bad acting. The next day, the police were investigating the dead body. Medical Examiner Jackie Stone came to the scene, and a detective explained the situation. “Found it just this morning,” he said, while sounding like he was constipated. “Apparently, not much trauma, but take a look at the face.” It appeared as if the woman’s nose was sliced off. Jackie leaned in closer, then gasped, as if she realized what she just saw. “My god. Seriously? Is that what we’re going wi-“ The scene repeats. “My god.” Jackie said, reluctantly. “It’s showing signs of ecto…ecto…” “Ectoplasmal!” Said a voice from out of nowhere. “Ectoplasmal energy!” Said Jackie, obviously embarrassed. “So… a ghost killed her?” “Most likely, but I need to gather up some info.” She left the scene, hoping that the detective would head to the bathroom soon after. She went over to the forensic lab, and was joined by Doctor Harry Tree, her old professor, and the only one there who truly knew how to act. She showed him the pictures from the scene. “Doc, what can you make of this?” Harry looked at the picture, and while there were multiple pictures, he couldn’t stop looking at the one with the victim’s face. “Jackie, look at this!” He said, while pointing at where the nose should be. “So her nose got sliced off. What about it?” He laughed. “No, my girl. Not sliced, snipped.” “So…a ghost gardener?” “Actually,” Harry said. “What we are witnessing in this picture is evidence of a Ghost Crab.” “Well,” Jackie said, sounding extremely bored. “This is interesting.” “It was bound to happen sooner or later.” Said Harry. “I’m sure you know that the local priests bless each of the crabs caught by fishermen in Maryland?” “Of course!” Said Jackie, unsure of herself. “Well, some crabs are accidentally left out , and are unable to enter the crabterlife.” There was some laughter heard, then it quickly became silent. “Is there any way to stop a ghost crab?” “Well, there is one thing…” That night, Jackie drove to the Dockside House of God. Harry told her that Ghost Crab sightings are connected to a particular rave-like tune, and the last hearing of the said tune was here. She enters the church, and notices someone. “Who’s there?” A middle aged man came out, dressed in the garb of a priest. “Welcome, child. May I help you?” He said. Jackie told him who she was and why she was here. “Ah, of course! I’m Father Gray, the pastor here.” He said. “I believe the Ghost Crab may be targeting my congregation.” He explained how he accidentally missed blessing a few crabs, making them miss the crabterlife. Suddenly, Jackie heard a sound. It sounded like… music? “Father, do you hear that?” Jackie asked. He nodded. They slowly went towards the sound. When they moved, the sound kept getting louder. Louder. Louder. And when they reached the peak of the sound, they saw it. A tiny crab, transparent in nature, definitely not being held by a string. The crab turned, and attacked the face of Father Gray. While panicking, Jackie rushed to remember what Harry told her. Taking his advice, she took the closest blunt object she could find, and beat the Crab with it. “The! Power! Of! Christ! Compels! You!” Jackie yelled, hitting the Crab after each word. The Crab fell off, and exploded in a stock explosion. “Are you… all right?” Panted Jackie. Father Gray was also panting, but he indicated that he was okay. Both of them were relieved that it was all over. A few months later, a man was out taking a walk. He was minding his own business, when he decided to follow a mysterious tune he heard. A familiar tune. A simple tune.
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Sep 26, 2022 06:16
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Prompts: Bucket Utopia, Mislead Men Dedication 1106 words I stood over Ram Blanc's bed, my sharpest knife millimeters from his throat, when his eyes snapped open. "Are you dying?" he asked me. I stopped, and I don't stop, blade to flesh. Not for pleas for mercy, not for attempts to bribe me, not for threats. But I stopped. "Well are you, lad?" he said. "No more than anyone else," I said. "Less than me, then," he said. "But you're here anyway, and must know you'll not leave alive. Why?" I'd been asking myself that all day. I'm not unfamiliar with compulsion. How could I be, with my kill count. But that's never been specific, anyone would do, any weapon, any method. So not "Why kill" but rather "Why him." "You're Ram Blanc," I said. "Those who know your name know you're the richest, most powerful bastard in this falling world. I wanted to have one on the list that I know made a real difference." "Ha," barked Ram. "You're right and you're wrong there, Julius." Panic, a feeling I hadn't felt since my second kill, that terrible second between action and result, the last time I had cause to fear my father or despise my mother. They deserved it, to be sure, maybe more than any of them. But that was the end of fear for me. Him I could fear, and with him gone no other authority figure could demand anything more than my contempt. Until right then. "Yes. I know your name, Julius Barb. And how do you think you came to know mine?" Ram was not someone who ever made Fortune 500 lists, nor even lists of speculation as to which great fortunes may be out there, held closely private. Governments were aware of some of his shell corporations, carefully leaking enough taxes to slip further notice. I had thought myself clever to follow a thread, one that turned out to be a worm-baited fish hook. "You set yourself out as a lure, to catch me?" I said. "Easier ways to kill yourself. Do you think putting an end to my run will balance your books?" "Don't be an idiot," said Ram. "There's no making up for the things I've done." "Then why?" "I told you before. I'm dying. A year, at the most, and all the best doctors money can buy can do is to keep me upright and lucid until the end. All that money, all that power, and I can't take it with me, and my children, well, they're more monstrous than either of us. Fools. Hedonists, wastrels, and one who has learned to love nothing but cruelty. I've failed them, and failed my legacy. Do you have children?" "Probably," I said. Killing has never been sexual for me, not with regard to my victims, but after, I've always taken a lover, and rarely with caution. "But none that are part of my life." "A wise choice, no doubt," he said. I almost reminded him of the edge near his jugular. "I've decided to leave something else behind. Something you can help with. Something that might make a better capstone to your pyramid than my skull." He explained it to me, and eventually my knife found its way back into its sheath. He started a while back, after his and the world's diagnoses came back grim. Cancer, metastasized, and global temperature rises well beyond the most optimistic point of no return. Fortunes spent setting up autonomous mining drones beneath the slowly melting Antarctic ice pack. More money subverting corporate boards and parliaments, buying off princes and presidents, manipulating the collapse of civilization. But there was only so far even his amount of money could go. I'd often wondered what I could do with an unlimited budget. If I hadn't learned about Ram I might have gone for a political kill, a president or justice, a candidate or king. Having the resources to do that properly, to come away clean, even unsuspected but by the conspiracy minded who do not believe in accidents, well, that was a part of what tempted. But quality wasn't all. Quantity was there as well. "War is inevitable," Ram told me, months later into our work. "Death, too. Death beyond experience. The new climate will support a fraction of what the old could. In a way, what you will need to do will change nothing." But in another way, I would take actions to deliberately trigger what looked like Armageddon, to make sure it happened before our shelter was known, before it could be targeted. "Not many even among us monsters could do that. You. Maybe Estelle." His oldest daughter. The cruel one. "Not me." "You're asking me to," I said. "Fair enough," he said. "Let the philosophers debate. But let there be philosophers." And I did it, retail corpse by artisanal corpse contributing pebbles to the landslide of wholesale massacre. And then, in the wastes, I helped collect the healthy survivors, transporting them to the ice, to the caves, to the city we had built. We did not enter the city ourselves, not once. And we did not set forth any rules. Just ensured plenty, with automated gardens and tool-printers, with libraries complete and uncensored, with systems that would adapt to their needs. And, foremost, with the best machine translation available to let them communicate, refugees from six continents and a hundred times that many nations and cultures. "Who would want the society a trillionaire would design?" he asked. "Or a mass murderer?" I said. "Indeed," he said. He died before that great experiment, before the day those in the city were asked to meet and decide on their new constitution. As that meeting went on, over days, I wandered above, guarding the gates. They came quickly, sooner than I had thought and in more numbers. Ram's children, those not incinerated in the last war, somehow tipped to what they thought was their legacy. I asked them to turn away. They refused. I honored my past agreement with Ram. I did not let them suffer, not even Estelle, who would have ruled and ruined humanity's future given the chance. The city contacted me. A large faction had formed, wanting to name me king or general, consul or minister. I refused. Then they asked me to at least give them one thing, asked me to give their city a name. I thought for a long time. Our names, either of our names would have been a curse. An old, burned city didn't seem any better. So, something to aspire to. Virtues I barely knew bounced in my head for long minutes. "Mercy," I finally said.
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Sep 26, 2022 07:40
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How Does One Cope With the Inexorable Desolation of Existance? 1000 words Greg approached, rubbing the side of his head. He sighed as his hand slammed down to rest on the counter. The clerk in the back raised his hand without turning around. "Gimmie a minute," he called out. Greg was taking a sloshed nighttime stroll through that part of town, and inadvertently stumbled upon the after-hours pharmacy. He smelled of whiskey, and whiskey. The clerk did a double-take as he walked up, trying to distinguish between the two kindred odors from unsuccessfully. With a puzzled look, he addressed his customer. "Yeah?" Greg slowly raised his head and looked at the clerk with his half-closed eyes. He hesitated. "Hey.. say, pal. Is this the Bloom Street location?" Greg asked, staring blankly off past the man in front of him. "This is Grook and 4th. You lost or something?" "You could say that," Greg mumbled. "I'm looking for some answers." "We got all the answers you need, buddy. What's the question?" The clerk motioned to the wall display over behind Greg's left shoulder. "How do I get some sleep around here? Why won't my head stop pounded?" He quickly glanced over Greg and smirked. "Perhaps, how can I get people to stop calling me 'the minute man'? "Look, I just want some answers." Greg muttered drunkenly, his head drooping. "You gotta give me something to work with, boss," groaned the clerk, folding his arms and taking a seat on his stool. "Like.. what does it all mean?" Greg slurred his sentence, and started laughing. The clerk shot him an unamused, icy glare. Greg interjected: "Relax. I'm loving with ya, man. It's been a long night, I'm just lonely," he said, unconvincingly. "Look buddy, it's a zoo back there. How bout you try aisle one," the clerk declared, giving him the bird, "and gently caress off/" Greg gathered himself and tried to stand straight. "My good man..." he nodded, turning and staggering off to the far end of the store. The clerk yelled out, "Out, or I am calling the cops, ya bum." Greg raised his hand the same way the clerk had greeted him moments ago to signify he had heard, and turned down the furthest aisle - eleven. He limped his way towards the front of the store, glancing to the products at his sides but not particularly paying attention to anything. With a soft thump, he bumped coats with a shabby looking, unshaven man. He looked like the mancer equivalent of a homeless man who by some arcane device grew vegetables in his own jacket pockets. "Sorry about that," he said, reaching over unabashedly to fix the man's collar. "Not a problem." The man smiled brightly. After an awkward pause of exactly six seconds, the man eventually continued talking while Greg did his best to not flop over: "I saw what happened back there. Shameful. Reprehensible. Immoral. What can a man do but help out his fellow man in a time of need?" The words seemed to get through to Greg; this scruffy night-fellow radiated an inexplicable warmth. "I appreciate it, brother," Greg said, giving the man a hearty pat on the shoulder. "You know, I think I might have the answers you are looking for," the man said, extending an arm around Greg and leading him towards the automatic door. An electronic chime rang as they stumbled out together, but cut out about 70 percent of the way through due to some kind of mechanical wear-related failure. The man lead Greg to the alley behind the store. It wasn't until they were enshrouded by darkness that his apprehensions began to surface. "What are we doing here?" He said, unaffectedly. The stubble on the shabby man's face lit up as he sparked up a zippo, giving a lick of light to the corridor. "We're gonna smoke this poo poo." He held up a small bundle of paper, rolled into a ball. There were some illegible markings on the paper that were hard to make out in dim light. The man looked to the silhouette of Greg, expectantly. Following brief silence, Greg replied. "gently caress it, not my first rodeo," he said, brazenly. "Excellent," the man peeped, stuffing the bundle into the bowl of a glass pipe. He lowered the lighter, stopping above the bowl. "Are You sure you want to do this? This poo poo aint for the weak of mind," he said in an intentionally cryptic manner, narrowing his eyes antagonistically. Then he chortled loudly. "Just loving with ya," he punched Greg's arm lightly to which Greg let escape a brief chuckle, and held the flame to the contents of the bowl. A greenish flame leapt from the pipe, giving the alley an eerie glow, as the man offered it to him. "Bibs get first dibs." He smiled sinisterly. Greg put his mouth the tip of the pipe courageously, and the man lifted his fingers from the carburetor as Greg took a huge puff. The next flicker of Greg's consciousness involved much wailing, and a bit of moaning. At some point when the glow of the morning sun illuminated the morning sky, Greg was sitting upwards in a cold sweat. His phone was vibrating, and there was a note in his lap. Can't stick around to fix your loneliness, but they can. At no point should you attempt to gaze directly into the void where their eyes should be. No exchanges, No further inquiries. - Gorndolph the Dank Greg turned to face one of several loitering etherlings. It shrieked liked the roaring wind when their eyes met, but Greg simply adverted his gaze. Then it got rowdy the void animus from last time wasn't fond of crowds. He hit the accept button on his phone, saying nothing but wincing as his headache came back. "You better get your rear end home right now, jerk. You are picking up the kids after practice this afternoon. And if I found out you did cosmic crack with another one of those bums down by the occult store again..."
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Sep 26, 2022 07:51
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MACABRE REGRET The Best of a Bad Lot (1000 words) The skeletons were marched onto the freighter in rows. They moved with such languid economy and stooped posture that even a child could detect their melancholy, despite the vacant look of their absent flesh. Their handlers, however, would never make such a connection, for they preferred not to think of the cargo as sentient at all. They were goods to sell. The unison march, compelled by the shackle of their masters’ word, drummed a low rumble across the midnight quiet of the beach. The loading was always done at night; the handlers feared the attentions of daylight. The handlers ushered the march towards the ramps of the blacked-out freighter. This ship would take them to their buyers. Working without lights that could betray their enterprise, the handlers squinted through the operation. The twilight didn’t trouble the skeletons. Their eyeless sockets bypassed the mundane to gaze straight into the luminiferous aether, where empyrean currents of magic roiled and crashed to color its world in explosions of cyans and teals. The moon above, with its vast lunar powers, drenched the sky in pinks while Neptune’s sea twinkled back luminous bronzes. The skeletons could also see each other as they once were, through flickers that gave transient flesh to their bones, as the men, women, and children who once lived. People from all walks of life, across time, marched up the ramps where cranes stacked metal containers on the deck. With the last skeleton herded into the bottom hold, the handlers issued confinement commands and left without locking-up. The anxiety of discovery wasn’t yet behind them. They rushed to prepare the freighter for departure. Left alone to their anguish, the petrified skeletons erupted in cries. “What’s happening?!” someone shouted with frantic, echoing voice. The aether allowed the dead to speak as well as see, but its tonal fragmentation was a mirror of its visual chaos. “How’d we get here?!” another resounded. “What have they done to us?!” Hundreds of other cries flooded the holds, stirring the aether’s currents. Ripples coiled around the frozen rows. The room resonated incoherently from the mania. In the hold’s corner someone’s muttering wove a pattern. A set of shackles burst. Someone had freed themselves. They slinked towards the exit, hoping to leave unnoticed. “Wait, are you moving?” The freed skeleton’s former self flashed briefly. An old woman, wearing tessellated robes, stood there. Some recognized it as the garb of Thaumaturges, wizards who once studied the stars and whispered words of power. Others, from different eras, simply wondered at her. The Thaumaturge escaped the holds without reply. “Hey! Hold-” She fled. She rushed up the exit ramp. She couldn’t be in that room anymore; its distress frayed her tender nerves. She was already confused enough without the hold’s frenzy spoiling her thoughts. Urged to take something sharp to ease herself further, she grabbed a work-hook from the walls and continued onward. The ship above was still on total black-out. Using the pink moonlight to guide her way, she crept past the patrolling handlers. It felt strange to be immersed in aether. In life, she’d only ever seen it through prismatic telescopes. She skulked until she found a quiet spot to reel in her nerves and take stock. Nothing was familiar to her. The stars were in different places, the handlers wore strange clothes, and she’d never seen a metal boat before. She tried to settle herself by breathing slowly, but her skeletal body refused. She frantically concentrated on what little she knew. We’re dead, we’ve been raised by necromancy, and we’re being taken somewhere. The notion gave her shivers. In her time, there was hardly a worse violation. The Raised were often thralls to warlords and madmen who cared little for its miseries. She swallowed her disgust to make further evaluation. How many of us are there? She looked across the aether for insight. She could see the faint tethers of the bound skeletons in the bottom hold wriggling towards a squat tower at the ship’s rear. These tethers connected the shackled to their masters. There were other tethers too, thousands of them, pouring out of all the metal rectangles stacked upon the deck. The scale of the wickedness nauseated her. This must be stopped. She could gather nothing else from her surroundings. She was too disoriented. Out of time, out of place, perhaps even out of mind. The Raised were often only echoes of themselves, flickers only intact enough to understand simple commands. Necromancy’s ways were truly cruel. A wave of hopelessness struck her. There was so much she didn’t understand. With nothing else to go on, she assessed her options. Things looked bad. She could break everyone’s confinement by destroying whatever was in the tower, but she didn’t know what was there. She could easily be overwhelmed by whatever was inside. If she failed, everyone would remain shackled. Their miseries could be endless if their captors intended so. More hopelessness struck her. Her swimming mind rushed for alternatives. I could destroy the ship. I could tap into the lunar powers above and summon a colossal tide. Total destruction would certainly end this atrocity, and put everyone to rest. But weren’t the others owed a better end? But wasn’t endless misery too horrible to risk? What would the others want? The inner-turmoil confounded her further. Her confusion craved certainty, so she called upon the moon, and a colossal tide came ripping towards the ship. It was done. We’ll be at rest soon. In the calm euphoria of a decision made, a sly option came winking at her. She didn’t have to attack the tower alone. If she could break her own confinement, she could break anyone’s confinement. With all the others, they could rush the tower. They could seize the boat and live out the remainder of the spell sailing the seas aboard a True Ghostship. The option seemed perfect! If only the necromancy hadn’t dazed her! Perhaps she could still- A colossal wave interrupted the thought.
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Sep 26, 2022 07:55
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Forgot to re-mention my prompt from a few posts up: Answer Shop From Grimoirum Verum To See Spirits of the Air. Take the brain of a cock, the powder from the grave of a dead man (which touches the coffin), walnut oil and virgin wax. Make all [this] into a mixture, wrapped in virgin parchment, on which is written the words: GOMERT KAILOETH, with the character of Khil. Burn it all, and you will see prodigious things. But this experiment should be done only by those who fear nothing.
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Sep 26, 2022 07:56
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Week 529 Flash: Viking Vampire/ Invisible 808 Words (please let it work out) Isle of Man? Brother Fionnghall grumbled up from the rows of kale (so much kale) and stretched a cramp as kinked as Iona’s coastline from his aching back. He heard Brother Calum as a faint whisper on the breeze as Calum tended the beans, but from that distance Calum must be bellowing hymns rather than his graceful chantry voice. Fionnghall rolled his neck and stared out across the calm waters, Abbey to his back. He saw pegs rise on the horizon and for a moment wondered if he was simply dreaming of calling it a day, grabbing a brandy, and rousing a game of quoits in the yard, until Calum’s bellows drew near, and he realized simultaneously that they were masts, and that was Calum’s concern. Calum huffed up beside him. “Longship. Several skeid,” he said. “Raiders.” There hadn’t been an attack since Fionnghall was an initiate, nearly twenty years prior. “We would welcome them to the arms of Christ, if they were civil. God drat the heathens.” He turned heel and sprinted as fast as he could towards the Abbey. Calum wheezed, but younger legs still hoofed it to the courtyard first. As Calum sounded alarm, Fionnghall pried open the creaking door to the armory. Training and maintenance were neglected as each peaceful year passed. Fionnghall’s sword sat unoiled for many seasons. There were scant few blades, but an assortment of spears and maces, weapons for the modestly skilled. He bustled as many as he could and took to the field. The monks, barely thirty strong, took spears in hands used to calligraphy quills, and stared with eyes nearsighted from the devotion to producing illuminated manuscripts as the skeid pushed its bow onto the beach. Fionnghall rubbed his eye in disbelief; the fast attack boat built for ten, had but one rower. Fionnghall pressed to the beach in the waning light and only then realized the glorious red reflections of sunset in the still waters were licks of flame consuming the invaders’ ships. The man struggled out of the skeid, and stumbled to all fours in the water, head just above the brine. He spoke a pidgeon of Norse and Anglo. Fionnghall parsed, “Danger loose, evil demon, death.” and something he could not understand, “Draugr.” The man screamed, dragged back into deeper water, and was gone. Like a boulder dropped, the water rippled and fountained, and Fionghall tripped backwards as he saw it was not water, but blood. From the center of the torrent, two eyes, the same color of blood, glowed bright as noonday. The creature rose from the water tawny braided beard and sculpted ropy body of a menacing berzerker, but clad in decay. As the tide nipped at his feet, Fionnghall struggled to draw his rusted sword. The draugr loomed over him and from behind a spear thrust into the beast’s chest. “Run,” shouted Calum, pressing the spear. Fionghall rolled sideways and scrambled up. The draugr grabbed the spear and it splintered. With one hand, warped into a monstrous claw, it flung the pole and Calum went with it, dashed into the sand. Another point pierced the monster, then another, and every spear was deep in the blackened flesh of the creature. It did not move its cracked lips, but Fionghall heard the chill howl deep in the recesses of his mind. It was not pain, but frustration. Several initiates dropped to their knees, clutching their ears at the silent wail. The monster bent backwards, a hedgehog in distress, and the monks were scattered, more of them in the water than not. “Retreat to the gatehouse,” Fionnghall yelled, “God save us.” He ran. He did not turn until he reached the gate, likewise disused. Iona was open to all pilgrims. The screams and popping snaps of wood behind as he gave in to fear would haunt him more than the monster’s lingering echo. He struggled. The portcullis shifted only a few feet before he gave up and freed his sword from scabbard. The sun fully set, candlelight flickered in a few small windows of the monks’ cells where they did God’s work. From the beach, Fionnghall saw the dancing pair of devil’s candles. Those eyes. Then another pair, and another. His brothers were corrupted. Grace be upon you. gently caress. The eyes follow and Fionnghall drops into the chantry where he begs God for help. God does not listen. He crimps his eyes shut and presses with the iron blade. Luck or God is with him and the monster spews a torrent of ichor from its neck. Iron prevails. Calum appeared. “Brother, you’re alive,” Fionnghall said, “Take the book. Take whatever books you can. I’m weak. The clannach is ready. Sail.” Calum set off, with holy books in his arms, and a strange brightness in his eyes, for Kells. Fionghall said, “Run. Disappear.” He would not be avenged.
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Sep 26, 2022 08:40
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 i have ascended The Cut of Your Jib fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Sep 26, 2022 |
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Sep 26, 2022 11:10
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Alright, submissions are closed!
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Sep 26, 2022 12:08
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Note: These are just my opinions. I appreciate you all participating in week 529. I didn't expect to win 528. Let me know if you want to discuss anything I had to say! Come at me via a brawl if you disagree wholeheartedly. Also a shout out to Bad Seafood who was kind enough to co-judge with me. Winner: Chernobyl Princess Loser: Baby Ryoga Honorable Mentions: Chili, hard counter Dishonorable Mentions: dervinosdoom Week 529 Judgment & Crits I have decided to use the Devil May Cry Stylish Rank System to evaluate your stories. dervinosdoom - Love Adjustment I feel like this story needed a less bleak outcome and there are a few places where I think sentences could be reworked for greater emphasis or clarity. Overall I don’t think the story is bad, but I also don’t think the double homicide and instant insanity was a fitting end here. A partner trying to do something to save their relationship and having those efforts end up irrelevant is something that struck me as good. I felt like that was the blow your story needed, and the lack of ceremony around it actually makes it seem more impactful, but I would have shifted the tone from there to something a bit more optimistic, or at least neutral. The pacing felt fine until the end and even though I am often a fan of things just not going right or even being outright terrible, the ending her just doesn’t match the story that preceded it, in my opinion. Rank: Cool! - Dishonorable Mention Chernobyl Princess - Driver Training I feel like you kind of hit it out of the park with the prompt & flash in a way that was very satisfactory. You allow the reader several opportunities to connect with the protagonist, and the outcome of the story seems very poignant. Rank: Smokin’ Style! - Winner MockingQuantum - The Still of the Night I think this is an interesting and darkly humorous take on the prompt. The idea of someone’s consciousness branching off into iterative astral selves is pretty-flipping-gnarly. I feel like the story was paced well and that it was a decent execution of the idea. Rank: Big up! Uranium Phoenix - What Is Found, What is Lost The world you manage to create in your 2,000 worlds is a total apocalyptic vibe. The characters are interesting and the world is unique. The majority of the story seems to be conveyed in the world the characters inhabit, but the dialogue between Caeto and Roland really seems to make the story pop. I think all the elements of your prompt and flash are present and handled well. Rank: Show Time! Chili - Skies and Lawns This one was a perfectly paced ride. At the beginning there was a lot of innocent chortling in what seems to be a humorously accurate portrayal of the relationship between an inquisitive child and their father, but as the story progresses the reader begins to see that Sona’s curiosity isn’t unfounded. The surreal nature of their predicament becomes increasingly dreadful and ends on a charming note despite the otherworldliness that has invaded their lives. Very well written. Rank: Stylish! - Honorable Mention The man called M - Enter the Ghost Crab I lost it at “crabterlife”. This was a weird one. The suggestive tripping and Fucks sake/gently caress’s sake was weird, but kind of funny. It’s like you deliberately wrote an acid day dream about Crime Scene Investigation, Ghosts and Crustaceans, but it does technically fit the prompt lol ‘He laughed. “No, my girl. Not sliced, snipped.”’ lmao Rank: Come on! Thranguy - Dedication I feel like this delivers on the prompt, but I feel like it also took some work to get to the end. The beginning felt firm, the middle felt loose and uncertain, the end felt firm. Not bad by any means, but it doesn’t seem like all the ideas fit together neatly. Rank: Carnage! BabyRyoga - How Does One Cope With the Inexorable Desolation of Existance Lol, well… you didn’t fail, so congratulations on that! You managed to crank out 1,000 cosmically crack-tastic words, that do manage to touch on the prompt more or less, but it didn’t do it for me. I apologize. Rank: Dismal! - Loss hard counter - The Best of a Bad Lot This was really good. An effective use of the thousand words. Did you have to trim much? Seems pretty competently written. Evocative details, an interesting premise, and a sick ending. Rank: Apocalyptic! - Honorable Mention The Cut of Your Jib - Isle of Man? You made it in. There are some cool ideas here, but I don’t feel like they all get proper handling even within the constraints of a thousand words. I think a re-working could really make this story congeal into something awesome. Cool imagery, prompt adherence and competent writing manage to make this a decent story all things considered. Rank: Bravo! Idle Amalgam fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Sep 28, 2022 |
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Sep 28, 2022 20:13
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Crits for Week #508 I've had these written for a while, but I accidentally stored them under the wrong account. My bad! Bad Seafood - The Longing: I saw this all as I read it. That’s powerful, and rare, but probably the only real positive thing I have to say. Beyond that, Akiko’s characterization feels largely unnecessary in the beginning as it doesn’t do much. She’s a girl wandering around trains, she’s probably a loner we don’t need her to be tall to see it and we don’t need to be told as much when you do a fine job of showing it. The spirit itself is playfully ominous but it’s also a bit hard to get intrigued by a spirit who just wants to be remembered. I do recall an animated Japanese short film about discarded products that come together to try and be remembered. This feels particularly relevant to what my limited understanding of the culture is. But, there’s not much tooth to it. The story just kinda comes and goes. flerp - Our YouTube Channel Still Isn’t Getting Much Views Though: Another one that just kinda comes and goes. Nothing her feels fully developed. There’s a little bit of a lover interested between the narrator and christ. The ghost waiter brings the pie, but the motivations for why the ghost is doing is only merely speculated at. It’s a fine enough snippet in something that feels like it needs to be bigger. As it is, this doesn’t do very much. Ceighk - Carl and the Swamp Creature: I got some bones to pick and throw at you. Let me get the pedantic poo poo out of the way first. I ave 0 issue with a script being submitted. But, if you’re gonna do that you surrender some elements of disbelief. Namely, in a play there IS NO loving WAY anyone ever allows you in their playhouse and let’s you put a torrent of hideous swamp water all over their stage. Now, you might be saying “well chili, obviously this isn’t a play I intend to mount, why are you being so pedantic?” to which I would say “well dude, you wrote a loving play, why not just write a story?” If you’re picking a medium, you have to follow that medium’s rules and not just cherry pick the benefits of it. This is just one problem, but there are a few others, that simply wouldn’t translate well to the stage. As for the actual plot of this? I mean, I guess its intended to be a metaphor for grief and depression? Which, OK, fine. That works well enough but there’s nothing here that feels fresh or new, and honestly namedropping League of Legends in the beginning didn’t do you any favors. Stick with original stuff and don’t count on whatever the perception is supposed to be of people who engage with something else. I don’t really understand what Carl wants apart from seemingly shaking himself out of depression, which is still just a guess. And for one of your characters being a swamp creature, you could certainly stand to characterize them a bit more as opposed to just making them a delivery system for boring, objective responses to things. Tyrannosaurus - a mall, a spirit, a friend: Solidly done. We learn about the spirit at its conception and watch it grow and change. It’s complicated and well characterized. The story also manages to deftly move through different feelings and earns all of its punches. Well done. The man called M - The Ice Sword and the Waterfall of fire: Lot of the usual complaints here. Odd and jarring tense shifts, questionable punctuation, weird expository stuff. But you know, you told a story, and I understood what was going through much of it. The spirit is, again, kind of an afterthought and doesn’t seem to be of great import but this is a good step in the right direction. hard counter - A Tricky Request: I’m torn on this one. I love the conceit, love the angle on the spirit and how they’re all nicely characterized. I really don’t like the pontifications and the entire opening which only gets in your way of this story being effective. You just don’t need that first beat, nor the end. Trust that the story you told is effective and don’t sandwich it with musings. Thranguy - Telegraphs: The place of this is resonant. I don’t struggle with feeling like I’m in the scene here. I did however, struggle with following the beats and the logic of what I’m reading. This had the unfortunate distinction of being a piece where I kinda forget what I just read as I was reading it. The easiest thing for me to point at is that the story essentially resets and starts all over again about 40& of the way in and I knew there wasn’t much left at the point anyway. Kinda lost me here. rohan - The Turbulence Waiting Beneath: Title’s a bit too on the nose and gives away the show a bit. Apart from that, this is a subtle story that addresses the prompt nicely while taking a rather indirect approach to the individual spirit. It’s cool that you set this in a world where spiritual inhabitants are normed and it’s just kinda a thing that happens. To then take it from that to things being more open to interpretation is a good choice. I dug this. BabyRyoga - Leathal Enforcers: Tonal issues kept this from being as good as it could be. Couldn’t really find a way to engage with the story because it couldn’t really decide what it wanted to be. This feels like the seedling for something that could exist in a bigger framework, couple thousand more words and you could spend the time you want on different areas. But for 1200? Pick something and make it good. sebmojo - Two Part Invention: This was freaky and weird. I think it handled the way the spirit and person interacted with each other better than most stories this week. The subtle influences of each source were highlighted and shown to clearly impact motivation and the narrative thrust. The Cut of Your Jib - Collapsing Metaphors, Missing Deadlines, Clock Confusion, Panic Buying Ironic NFTs, (Regret): I found this frustrating but empathetically so. The engagement between protag and GQ was accurately grating and tough to read and the high concept takeaway of the piece was intriguing. This kinda reminded me of Muse’s Exogensis thing. I dug it.
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Sep 28, 2022 20:58
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ANTI -CORP PROPOGANDA The year is 2322, the world is all sprawling megacities. Not content with having the latest technology in their hands, people implant that technology into their bodies. Despite this having the potential to uplift us all into a post-work utopia, corporate greed and shortsightedness locks humanity into an intensely stratified world of haves and have-nots. Also, it is always raining. We don't know why. Write me a cyberpunk or biopunk dystopia in 1500 words Biopunk differs from cyberpunk in that the technology is based in flesh and plant matter. It can be greasy, shiny, fleshy... as gross or as beautiful as you want. Think Pump Six and Other Stories. It often has the same themes as cyberpunk: megacities, megacorps, eternal underclasses serving a distant upper class, and the advancement of technology happening almost faster than we are able to integrate it into our societies. You are not limited by these themes, take the aesthetic and RUN WITH IT. Ask for a flash rule and I will give you a megacorp to work into your world Word limit: 1500 No: erotica, political screeds, fanfic Signups close: Friday, Sept 30 12:59pm PST Entries close: Sunday, 12:59pm PST Judges: Chernobyl Princess crabrock chili Entrants: Idle Amalgam, flash: Cho Braxton Henkl Something Else, flash: ProChem Thranguy, flash: Andersen-Michaels The man called M, flash: Hats4Hire flerp, flash: Janus Media dervinosdoom Beezus CaligulaKangaroo, flash: Sightline My Shark Waifuu, flash: AllSmiles! Chernobyl Princess fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Sep 29, 2022 |
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Sep 28, 2022 21:05
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In and flash!
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Sep 28, 2022 21:14
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In and a flash please !!
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Sep 28, 2022 21:26
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In and flash
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Sep 28, 2022 21:39
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In. Flash, please.
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Sep 28, 2022 21:57
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in flash 
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Sep 28, 2022 22:01
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IN
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Sep 28, 2022 22:10
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Idle Amalgam posted:In and flash! Cho Braxton Henkl, an energy conglomerate Something Else posted:In and a flash please !! ProChem, a medical biotechnology company Thranguy posted:In and flash Andersen-Michaels, a private bank The man called M posted:In. Flash, please. Hats4Hire, an information security corp flerp posted:in flash Janus Media, a news/infotainment corp
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Sep 28, 2022 22:48
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Week 493 Redemption Soon, she has all the cosy toast she needs and begins secretly applying for private detective jobs. She soon realises that clumsy wizards plan to sabotage her new career prospects and decides to take action. The Cozy Book Club Murders: Chapter One 1600 words ‘Is this enough?’ Claire asks, walking into the lounge with two full plates of toast, an entire loaf browned and buttered and slathered in Victoria’s favourite jam. ‘There’s some bread in the freezer if we need more—’ ‘That’s plenty,’ I tell her, straightening from where I’ve just placed a kettle atop Victoria’s shawl. ‘Place them evenly in a circle. Jam side up.’ ‘Does that help draw the spirit?’ ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘It keeps the carpet clean.’ Mercy leans against the door jamb and rolls her eyes. She doesn’t offer to help, but she doesn’t leave, either. Her hands are wrapped around a mug of tea she’d insisted on making before the ritual, so we’re already running behind — and while you might think those in the hereafter would have eternal patience, mostly it just means the Holier Than Thou types are even more insufferable with proof. As Claire places the toast, I survey our handiwork: an outer ring of toast, an inner ring of dog-eared novels, and the shawl and kettle in the centre. All of Victoria’s creature comforts, arrayed in the optimum display of coziness required for snugglemancy. I take position and close my eyes. I imagine Claire does the same, while Mercy’s rolled hers far enough back it makes no difference. ‘Amica mea,’ I begin. ‘Revertere ad fovere locum…’ The kettle hisses and I open my eyes to see steam pouring from the top, resolving into Victoria’s head, capped by a large bathtowel. ‘“Rest in peace”,’ Victoria scoffs. ‘Can’t even shower in peace!’ ‘They—they have showers in the afterlife?’ Mercy asks. ‘Of course there are bloody showers! Foolish girl,’ Victoria spits, whirling around to Mercy. ‘You think I wanted to spend eternity smelling like a creek? Oh, and I see you’ve claimed my mug, too!’ Mercy shrinks back, chastened, and Claire leans forward, waving as if this were just another video call. ‘Hi, mum,’ she says, smiling. ‘We’ve missed you a lot.’ ‘Hi, darling,’ Victoria smiles, and then scowls. ‘Should’ve known you’d organise some fool ritual. What, did you forget a recipe already?’ I kneel and place my hands inside the circle. ‘Victoria Brown,’ I begin, ‘we’ve summoned you today to ask what happened on the night you died.’ ‘Who are you,’ Victoria asks, raising an eyebrow. ‘Some make-believe detective?’ ‘Her name’s Michelle,’ Claire pipes up, leaning into Victoria’s view. ‘I found her on Northcote Good Karma. She’s here to help solve your murder.’ ‘Murder?’ Victoria scoffs. ‘You’ve been reading too many of my books. A fall in Merri Creek killed me. Go after whoever made the bike paths so slippery when it rains.’ ‘You rode a bike better than any of us,’ Claire continues. ‘And you were a fierce swimmer. You can’t tell me the family’s reigning triathlon champ was bested by a little rain.’ ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Victoria says. ‘That, and the no-good council who left the paths in such a state. Cracks all over the place.’ I think back to my last case, Mr Thornton, who’d fallen from a ladder while cleaning his gutters. At the time, I’d attributed his death to vengeful ghosts who were caught in the storm pipes — but maybe there had been something else at play. ‘Had you had any other mishaps before that?’ I ask. ‘Had you dropped anything, fallen over anywhere else?’ ‘You think I was just old,’ Victoria glares. ‘You should talk to Mercy. She spent years trying to get me into a home. Just so she could steal my mugs and sell this house, hm?’ Mercy sighs from the doorway, and steps into the room. ‘You were getting old, mum,’ she says. ‘There’s no shame in it. You almost fell off the stepladder changing the lights. Last week you couldn’t even fill the kettle without tipping half down the sink—’ I hold my hand up, and Mercy pauses mid-sentence. ‘I hope I’m wrong,’ I say, affecting the dramatic intonation that’s responsible for half of my positive reviews: ‘but it’s worse than I thought. ‘It was wizards.’ *** ‘You’re telling me,’ Mercy says, for the third time that evening, ‘wizards cast a spell on mum to make her — clumsy?’ ‘Precisely,’ I say. ‘It’s a dark magic few speak of. Klutzomancers are dangerous — they can make anything seem like an accident. I think your mum got on the wrong side of some very powerful people.’ ‘I can’t think who’d possibly want to kill mum,’ Claire muses, head in hands at the end of the table. ‘Everyone loved her. She was always volunteering — at Lentil as Anything, at the veggie co-op, at the library book club…’ I look back to the lounge where the books still sit, surrounded by cold slices of toast. I’d used the same pattern when summoning the spirit of Mr Thornton; only he was more into military sci-fi than the cozy mysteries Victoria favoured. ‘Who else was in this book club?’ I ask. ‘Just some of my mum’s friends, parents whose kids went through school with us. They kept in touch for years — her, Beryl Strainthorpe, Mrs Polliver, Jack Thornton — others, but a lot of them died in the past few years.’ ‘Mr Thornton?’ I muse, setting my tea down on its saucer. ‘He died last fortnight.’ ‘Oh,’ Claire sighs, and looks up. ‘That’s a shame. I hope Paul’s handling it alright. Did he—I assume he must have—’ ‘He called me, yes,’ I say. ‘To investigate the death. At the time—’ Claire’s eyes widen and she reaches out to grab my wrist. ‘You don’t think,’ she starts, and then looks over to Mercy. ‘You don’t think the wizards got to Jack too?’ ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Mercy says, and stands to leave. ‘I’m going to bed. If the wizards push me down the stairs, I hope you’ll avenge my death. Goodnight, Claire. Michelle.’ ‘You can’t joke about this, Mer!’ Claire cries, and then whirls to me. ‘Are we safe? Would the wizards know we’re on to them? God, I’ve got an overdue library book. What if that’s what this is all about?’ ‘You’re safe,’ I tell her, my mind ticking over with possibilities. Even with wizards, there’s always a logical explanation, some tediously trivial cause-and-effect. Still: klutzomancers. In Northcote. Hardly the seat of any mystical power; whoever had deployed them to murder Victoria and Jack — and potentially others — must have had a very specific aim in mind, inscrutable though it may be. Claire frowns, noting the disconnect between the attempted comfort of my words and the lengthy pause of consternation, and I offer a smile. ‘It’s been a long day,’ I tell her. ‘I think we should both get some sleep. We can return your book in the morning — trust me, they don’t get anywhere near enough funding to send klutzomancers out for late fees.’ *** It had been raining while I was at Victoria’s house, though when I leave the rain’s easing up and I don’t bother with my umbrella. As I walk, hands in pockets, down the street toward the station, I run the facts through my mind—trying to imagine a motive for hiring klutzomancers to dispose of two septuagenarians, whose only crime might have been a rather pedestrian taste in literature. I’m so focused I don’t hear the car until it speeds through the gutter beside me and I’m drenched by a wall of cold water. Ahead, the car slows and indicates to turn away, and all thoughts about motive and investigation are replaced by petty revenge. Snugglemancy relies upon comfort and coziness to fuel its magical energy; my go-to conduit is a hot cup of tea. You could argue that finding yourself soaked to the skin by stormwater on an already-cold night is antithetical to snugglemancy: and if magic paid any attention to logic, I should be powerless. However, as I stand sopping, I know there’s only one way I’ll be able to sleep soundly tonight—warmed through with recollections of revenge. Channelling thoughts of hot tea; memories of sipping chamomile under a blanket as it rained; anticipation of the fireplace that awaits me at home: I draw the snugglemancy out from my cashmere sweater and weave the complex spell with mittened fingers. The air hums with murmurations, comforting as a cat’s purr, as I narrow my gaze and push the collected energies toward the retreating car. The car skids to a halt, its momentum arrested by an enormous plush pillow wrapping around its bonnet and gripping the tread of its tires. I lower my hands and stroll over to the driver-side door, kneeling down to peer inside like some gentle gendarme. The window lowers, and I find myself face-to-face with— ‘Claire?’ I ask, affronted. ‘Oh,’ she says, shrinking back. ‘Sorry, Michelle—I mustn’t have seen you—’ I peer inside the car, hand like a visor to shield the glare of the streetlights. ‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly. But with klutzomancers around, I’m sure you understand—’ ‘Of course,’ Claire smiles, relieved. ‘You need to be careful. We all do! After what happened to mum—and poor Mr Thornton taking a fall off the ladder—no telling who’ll be next!’ ‘That’s right,’ I nod, and begin to stretch back up before I notice the cardboard box in the passenger seat, a mug’s handle poking out through a gap in the top. ‘Actually,’ I continue, ‘I don’t recall telling you how Mr Thornton died—’ Her eyes widen, and before I can react she opens the door and knocks me down onto the road, and I barely see her flip-flopping away through the rain in worn pink moccassins, clutching the box tight to her chest. rohan fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Sep 28, 2022 |
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Sep 28, 2022 23:26
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Yeah I'm in.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:04
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In! Flash me please!
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Sep 29, 2022 18:43
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In, flash please
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Sep 29, 2022 19:12
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CaligulaKangaroo posted:In! Sightline, a personal security/mercenary outfit My Shark Waifuu posted:In, flash please AllSmiles!, a daycare/early childhood education contractor
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Sep 29, 2022 20:30
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Hey, anyone see that lovely Cyberpunk cartoon with the creepy sexualized Harley Quinn-esque child-cyborg? It's like Trigger is incapable of making a cartoon without being creepy about kids. *puts on oversized VR helmet and lights a cigarette* I'm IN. Flash me up so I can cybercruise the netways with my hyperjacks.
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Sep 30, 2022 01:02
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Screaming Idiot posted:
SterLINK, a [matrix/net/feed/hyperweb/whatever you wanna call it] access provider
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Sep 30, 2022 01:40
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Obliterati posted:I done hosed up. The Cait-Shìth Exhibit 568 words When the Keepers released fifty-five cats into her enclosure - ‘a culturally authentic environment’, the guides said - Mhairi was purestrain livid. She was a dog person, but that wasn’t why. Her real problem, other than being imprisoned in a pale echo of the bridge of the Fionnghuala, was the riddles. You knew where you stood with dogs, see, but cats had no respect for the chain of command. They scratched up the captain’s chair and they pissed in the corners and as fur their bloody blastit black-hairit queen - she just widnae gie it a rest wi the riddles. A voice at her feet said, “what does a cat have that no other does?” Mhairi ignored it. “Oi, you did this one already!” Grath-Nagloffin in the next enclosure smacked something wet on the shared wall, sending the visitors outside into an ecstasy of camera flashes. “Kittens!” Kellaine purred. “Correct, horror-thing.” She stretched upwards, digging her claws into the thin fabric of Mhairi’s trouser leg. Someone banged on the glass, insistent and expectant. Mhairi sighed and sank deeper into her chair. Right now she could have been a cloud of dust peacefully dissolved in vacuum, but naw, she jist hud tae try an run instead. “Do youse no dae anythin useful?” “Riddles are always useful,” said the Queen of the Cats. “That’s right. You’ve got to keep your mind active, love,” said Grath-Nagloffin. “You know what happens to folk what give up.” Aye right were they useful. The Keepers hadn’t found her using riddles, hadn’t snapped the spine of the Fionnghuala with koans, hudnae put her in this box tae die via a crossword puzzle. She glanced upward, at the grate bolted over the ventilation shaft, and sighed again. # They’d given her just enough space in the back room, hidden from view, to curl up in a ball and try to sleep. This rarely worked. “Hey.” “gently caress. Aff.” “Why is a cat indoors like a fire?” “…Ah wish Ah could put ye oot?” She felt the gentle passing of claws down her spine as Kellaine thought about it. “Would you rather be in here alone?” Mhairi rolled over. “Ah’d rather no be here at all, ya dozy clown!” “You never answered the riddle.” “Aw, hell naw-” “You were close, though. A cat, a fire: the sooner it goes out,” said Kellaine, “the better.” # Mhairi’s first clue that something was wrong was the ear-splitting alarm. Her second was the emergency lighting that shaded her vision dark red even when she opened her eyes. The third, aye well as she walked up to the glass she could see how- Outside her enclosure it was pandaemonium. The Keepers had come out to contain it, all frothing limbs and thick wide nets, but for every cat caught in that webbing three were biting ankles and getting it loose and a fourth was tripping their captor and a fifth was yowling like God had just banned catnip - somebody’s camera, dropped, was flashing picture after picture after picture of the chaos, a perfect memento of why one shouldn’t cage a cat. “Well,” said Grath-Nagloffin. Behind her, there was a clang. Kellaine looked down at her from the ventilation shaft, her black coat glistening in the red light. “How does a cat get out of a trap?” Mhairi grinned. “Any way she feels like,” she said, and climbed into the vent.
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Sep 30, 2022 12:53
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In.
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Sep 30, 2022 23:00
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