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Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.
Now perhaps you have thought to yourself Gosh That Seafood Seems An Okay Sort But One Wonders Why He Never Writes Stream Of Consciousness well wonder no more.

Seriously though I hate this stuff, stream of consciousness; reading it, writing it, which is why I picked it, and sincerely apologize to whoever has to critique it.

Additionally contains swords and not much sorcery, which is a genre I've never written before and probably shouldn't again.

The Lion and the Jackal (686 words)

Got some sharp teeth on that one there that Slaglander look at him high horse strutting about face of stone. But those teeth when he smiles must’ve spent years honing them image of Kuraket their god the maneater only eats virgins – such a waste – least it frees up an old man like myself. But those teeth could collect a good copper for those here from any seaside settlement seems a shame to leave them where they be in the mouth of a captor. Slavery’s a nasty business but I suspect I’ll make out I usually do it’s the young ones they work to death should be more concerned for the young one they shackled to me even if he is bigger than the rest took his sword took his shield took his armor practically naked but for a bit of leather and cloth those Slaggers think themselves generous heh.

He’s a strong one that one strong eyes strong will won’t break I don’t think they’ll work him to death before they work him to submission. Cuts his feet on the rocks and the glass in the sand but won’t say a word course I wouldn’t either but I’m used to it. Stands a greater animal than all of us like a general or a son or a sun’s blinding hot drat this heat won’t they rest? There’s those teeth again that laugh cold as ice that man Slaglander all of them cold as ice in their blood.

Son why did I think son I have no son no don’t even know his name though that won’t matter soon.



I can’t leave him like this I can’t leave him I can’t.

Where is it where the tooth silver from the man in Kauppei the Slagger drat them if they’d known I carried a piece of their countryman there THERE tucked away yes yes there easy does it catch the light now he sees it. Take it take it you know what this means well as I take it take it takeittakeittakeithere he goes into the lock a quiet chip and they’re both broken. Knows to hold up the chain no stranger to circumstance they’ll be keeping pace wha-umphf!

Paft-falak sand mouth trip fsht fsht what’s he doing getting both us killed Slaggers coming closer they’ll see know chains loosed flay us both drat it boy could’ve run what’s he dOH CAUGHT HIM off the horse round the neck that’s it choke him choke him sent to his gods to my feet to my feet there’s another round the back sword drawn take a fistful of sand GOTCHA don’t think small of a little old man now the keys where’s the keys somewhere midst the fabrics gotcha GOTCHA the lock the lock these shackles get them off the boy’s still fighting killed that one now the other dancing sideways sword in hand swing of steel trace the curvature through the air to the neck to the blood crimson spurt another dead drat but he’s good breathless beaten standing still the remainder flee drops his chains while the slaves look on.

He’s looking to me look to me they all look to me what do I look like I don’t understand I can’t understand his speech foreign nonsense least he’s grateful now he turns towards the sun not the way we came must have business down that way lost his sword took a new one and a horse waste not want not I suppose.

Free again slaved again what a cycle hands free there we are wrists sore careful careful look at that such a rash rest are worse I imagine no time for that no none at all. The goddess smiles like the Slaglander smiled yes those his neck’s been broken but his teeth those teeth oh how lovely let’s just take those come on now come out out out with it ooouuut ouuuuutttya one there’s one one two two twoooooooo two three three even just a handful’s threeeeee three four fouh that’s chipped no good this one then that’s four now five…

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Noah
May 31, 2011

Come at me baby bitch
Man, cranking out 4 things this week was kind of exhausting.

A Rare Find

words: 997

Darryl walked along the beach, just out of reach of the small lapping waves. In one hand, his metal detector, in the other his lucky skipping stone. He had rubbed a smooth divot into the stone over the years, always in time of the beeps coming from his instrument. Waves crashed but Darryl couldn’t hear them through the headphones. Empty, lonely beeps. A white breasted, hook billed bird dropped in front of him. He pulled his headphones to around his neck and stared at the albatross.

The bird squawked at Darryl.

“What is it little guy?”

The bird turned and waddled down the beach. Periodically, the bird would turn and squawk again. Darryl followed calmly, the bird waiting until he was close enough before continuing on.

Finally Darryl caught up with the bird, where he saw it feverishly digging into the sand. Every so often a wave would wash over the hole, erasing the progress the bird had made. It danced around, trying new angles in vain.

Shooing the bird out of the way with his foot, Darryl jammed his trowel into the sand. Scoop after scoop, Darryl cleared out a large hole as the bird became more incensed.

“Hold your horses,” Darryl said. Feeling something sold, Darryl bent down. It was longer than his hand, but he could grab it, like a handle. Pulling it up from the sand, he put it in the water of a coming wave and washed it off. In his hand was a root, a tuber of sorts, but deformed. Appendages seemed to sprout from the main body, twisted and gnarled, ending in odd strands. Tiny green sprigs of grass acted like hair at one end, with two grotesque appearing legs at another end.



Darryl barely noticed the albatross screaming and flapping around him. Tiny openings near the top of the root spread apart. Deep pits where two eyes and a mouth stretched open briefly, causing Darryl to gasp. Suddenly, the water bird lunged, slamming its hooked bill into Darryl’s hand.

Blood shot up from the wound, and Darryl dropped the root. The bird snatched up the thing in its mouth and took off. “Ow, you son of a bitch,” Darryl said. Before he even realized it, his good hand was in his pocket grabbing his smooth skipping stone. It sailed like a tiny discus through the air. A sharp crack came from the bird as it nose dived into the sand.

Darryl winced as he came upon the bird. Its neck dangled limply in the shallow waves, clearly broken. Bending down, Darryl pried open the dead bird’s beak and pulled the macabre tuber out. He stared at it briefly, before tucking it into his jacket and collecting his metal detector.

At home, he stared at the root intently. It didn’t appear to move anymore. Scared, Darryl took a picture and posted it online, hoping for some identification.

Realizing his mistake, Darryl grabbed a small pail and trowel and ran down to the beach. He filled his pail full of wet sand and ran back to the cottage. As he climbed the cinderblock steps to the deck, he saw another large, white bird perched on a deck railing. Darryl shook his bucket at the bird, feeling guilty under the beady, black eyed gaze of the bird.

Piling the wet sand onto the tuber, which he had placed in a bucket, he hoped for the best. Checking his post online, he still had no replies. Countless Googling led him no further.

Darryl started digging through the sand again, wanting to see the root. His wet fingers wrapped around it, and he felt a small pulsation. Like a throat swallowing a small sip of water. It seemed bigger, and he was positive the root’s appendages had changed position.

Suddenly, the root shuddered, and yawned. Its tiny openings were like spiracles gasping for breath. Darryl panicked, burying the thing. Sitting back at his computer, he hoped someone would have answers for him.

“fake.”
“This is clearly shopped.”
“Fagit, i hope yu die.”

Darryl turned the computer off. Screams and bleats echoed through the air. Looking out his window he saw swarms of seabirds scattered around his yard and deck. They were watching from trees and telephone poles. Screaming. Darryl ran downstairs.

Sand had been pushed up from the sides of the bucket, scattered along the floor. In the bucket, the root lay, cradled in a pit of sand. Eyeholes, deep, black and endless peered at Darryl. Its mouth shiny with moisture.

The thing swelled. Bloated and wet, breathing like a wounded animal. He could hear the birds outside, a cacophony of caws and squawks. Bigger, and bigger, it grew with each labored breath. Birds began to slam against the windows, and Darryl could hear more and more birds joining the fray.

The thing began to shudder, and breathing grew louder. Its twisted limbs squirming like worms that had been cut in half. Choking sounds came from the thing. Wet, gurgling choking sounds. Purple goop spilled out from the side of its mouth, and it hacked. Gulls and birds crashed through the upstairs window, and Darryl could hear them scraping around, but could only watch.

With a final hack, a puddle of purple goop shot up and out of the thing, and it stopped. Slowly, it began to deflate, and wither. Within seconds it looked like a popped balloon, merely a rumpled skin lying in a puddle of goop and sand.
And the birds, they were silent. Darryl looked out the window and watched the last of them fly away. He turned back to the husk and watched it dry into something similar to snakeskin before disintegrating into the air. Darryl stood motionless. One last flapping bird upstairs made a racket before making its way out the broken window. Darryl scratched his head and listened to the distant waves crash on the beach, and looked over at his metal detector.

Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe
Picker
364 Words

The truck goes down the alley slow
nosing among the scattered dross, looking
for metal-sign, the glints and telltale sheen,
which lead to castoff treasures, abandoned gold.

The cab is silent today, no music
that kind of day. That kind of mood. He smokes
rolls down the window just a crack, cold breeze
outside whispering through, fingerless gloves
one tapping ash, one loosely on the wheel.

Eyes darting ceaselessly, searching for scrap
When found, it will be pried apart, gutted
then thrown together in the high walled bed,
piled haphazardly, bound together with rope.

Mostly it takes no time, no time at all.
Hops out the truck, grab it, throw, back in, gone.
The big ones, though, they need some care, some focus.

Like this one, almost blocking the way
left carelessly, with hope that someone else
would deal with it, remove the problem, please.

He stops the truck, steps out deliberately
strides towards the prize, a sofa bed, angled
up, pointing skyward, stained and forgotten,
hard frame beneath soft foam and cloth, the ax
swung high to crash upon it, stuffing thrown
into the air like snow, the harsh shriek of
metal on metal, clawing out the bones.

The gutted carcass left behind, he stoops
dragging the mangled frame behind him slowly
cacophony on pavement drawing stares
from passers-by, muttering, dark looks, follow
clinging to him like garbage stink. He's used
to both. Deals with them every day. Don't care.

He stoops and straightens, heaves, the jangled mess
refusing to cooperate, the truck
not helping either, worn out springs sagging
unpredictably. He keeps on anyway
grits his teeth, growls from his chest, ignores the crowd,
laughing at him, chuckling down in their throats.

When he manages to get it on, cheers
break out, the crowd clapping as he dusts off
walks stiffly around to the door, applause
heralding his ascent to the seat, cheers
as he shifts gears and rolls the window closed
smoke already starting to thicken up.

The engine's belching rumble echoes back
from tight-packed buildings crowded round,
exhaust billowing out behind, cold cloud
white in the morning frost, weak sun throwing
pale light on piles of trash and worn-out goods.

twinkle cave
Dec 20, 2012

THUNDERBRAWL LOSER
THUNDERDOME WEEK XXII: Schroedinger's Nihilarian

The Prompt:

A person who deals with things lacking importance

The place outside my box that wicked Fanky forced me to go: HORROR
(999 words)

The Attic

Jane came home from work early and noticed the closet door in her spare room was open. She didn't remember leaving it open. She shut the door and moved on with her day.

That evening she made her nightly walk to the grocery store. She lived alone, and with the store only a block away it made more since to shop for her meals daily.

She rounded the apartment complex, a 12 unit row of single story brick. She watched for her neighbor, Ms. Haber, the old lady that kept a vigil to snag someone for boorish conversation. Sometimes Jane slipped out the back door to avoid her. Jane's lowest point in dealing with Ms. Haber involved a death.

"My sister died," Ms. Haber said, "the funeral was today." Ms. Haber thought she had her.

"I'm really sorry to hear that," Jane said, and quickly moved past her. "I hope everything is ok," she said before shutting the door in Ms. Haber's face. Never even broke stride. She's never tried to be my friend, she just wants someone to unload on.

On her way to the grocery store a man was sitting on a bench in front of the library reading a newspaper. It was strange because he sat next to the bronze memorial statue of the library founder. A statue of a man reading a newspaper. She felt the man's eyes scan her from across the top of the paper as she walked by. She got the sense that he was waiting on her.

She bought her groceries and returned. The man was gone. When she got home she cooked her meal, watched a bit of TV, then went to bed. That night she thought she heard scraping. Probably Ms. Haber, she thought and went back to sleep.

The next night on her walk to the store she noticed a letter tapped to the statue's metal newspaper. It was written in messy child's handwriting. A list to Santa Clause. Thinking it was cute she snapped a picture.



When she got home she got ready to share her funny photo with friends, but when she uploaded she noticed something strange. "Check your attic," was written at the bottom of the page. She hadn't noticed it before. "Weird," she said aloud, "Glad I don't have an attic."

That night she heard the scraping again in her sleep. She had strange dreams of visiting an old attic. That morning, she woke up in a funk. She had a special client she was meeting and needed to look good. She went to her spare room's closet where she kept a lot of her rarely worn clothes. She reached into the top of the closet for a pair of boxed shoes when she noticed it. A little hatch in the ceiling. And it was open a crack. Jane shivered. She did have an attic.

She thought about moving on with her day, ignoring the oddity. But she couldn't. She reached up and pulled down the short string hanging from it. As the door opened a little ladder came sliding down. It was made of metal and ran on a set of hydraulics.

The floor felt like it slipped away. She nervously pawed at the ladder going up slowly. When she reached the top, she saw a lab. A room covered with electronics, screens, and chemistry equipment. After her initial shock she began to examine the room in earnest.

Along the corridor's floor were windows viewing into all the apartments below it. But what she saw wasn't her neighbors. Instead strange creatures. After seeing what looked like a giant praying mantis, a yeti, and a tiny man, she went to Ms. Haber's window. Expecting the worse, she edged over and took a look. But all she saw was Ms. Haber sitting in a wing backed chair.

At that moment Ms. Haber's door bell rang. A courier. Ms. Haber began to go into her usual routine of incessant droning on, then Jane noticed it. A hole began to open in Ms. Haber's chest. A strange sucking black hole. It got bigger and bigger as she talked. Slowly a white glowing light started to be pulled from the courier's body. After several minutes, the man looked very tired and Ms. Haber shut the door.

Jane pulled back. She was horrified. Ms. Haber was some kind of succubus. She wanted to see what she'd do next. When Jane crept back to the window, Ms. Haber was looking straight into Jane's eyes. All the hairs on Jane's neck stood up. She backed away in shock and Ms. Haber smiled.

Scrambling back down the ladder, Jane decided to go out the backdoor. Ms. Haber was standing outside waiting for her. "Where you going sweety," she said, that wicked smile still plastered to her face.

Jane ran down the street. Her car was parked in front of the apartments and she was too scared to go to it. She headed to the grocery store hoping for safety in a public place.

As she went she noticed the man from the library was back at the bench next to the statue. She began cross the street thinking he might be a creature himself, but the man got up and grabbed her arm.

"Follow me," he said.

Jane tried to pull away. "Stop," she screamed.

"Shush," he said, "We have to get out of here. Now." He started to drag her to a car parked in front of the library. "Look, I know what you saw in the attic. You have to trust me. Both our lives are in danger."

"What?" she said, "Why is this happening?"

"I'm an overseer," he said, "It was my job to watch over all the creatures. But what they wanted to do to you... I couldn't stand for that."

"But I'm normal," she said, "I'm human."

"You're not human," he said, "you just think you are."

Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe
Poetry is really hard! I have never written any kind of it before and now I have a special loving respect for those who do.

toanoradian
May 31, 2011


The happiest waffligator
The prompt and challenge had defeated me. I swear I will not die until I have eaten a whole secretary bird.

Fanky Malloons posted:

toanoradian: Dark sensual realistic romantic erotica. With a secretary bird that must not die, and crushing poverty, and a religious crutch (per HG and FM)

The Bible vs. the Bird (999 words)

Running to that loosely connected bricks she called a house wouldn’t undo time. I got out of my car some distance from the house and walked. The winds from the sea blew my blue tie to the side. Secretary birds ran across the empty coastal plains.

I saw her sitting on the floor. She still prepared food for three. There were some rice and burnt fish on the three plates. The steam from two of the cups gave a smell of tea. She didn’t look up as I neared her. Only when I was close did she slowly looked up and gave the strongest impression of a smile she could.

I went straight to the point. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She looked at the table and then lifted a cup of hot tea at me. “Have a drink.” I shook my head and she put it down. She tapped the spot to her right.

I sat down next to her. She refused to look at me. “There’s no doctor or anything?”

“No doctor can save two crumpled bodies. Not like I can pay any if they can.” She began to shiver.

I looked into her face. There were bags under her eyes. She then tried to hide her cracked lips with her bony fingers. “Have you slept?”

“No.”

“You should.”

“I don’t want to see them in my dreams.”

“Just sleep.”

“I never slept alone.”

Even slapping my own lips could not stop it saying “then I will sleep with you.” She looked at me. The thought didn’t disgust her.

Her bed should be too small for three. She lied down on the bed, showing her back to me. I lied down as well, using my right arm as a pillow. My left hand was on her waist. Moving them up and down had no effect.

“Please sleep.” I continued to rub her waist. This worked when our mother did it to me.

Hours pass in silence with us remaining awake. The bedroom turned dark. There were no light bulbs on the ceiling.

She began to shift. “Maybe if I paid enough attention…”

I rubbed her waist. “Stop. It’s not your fault.”

She turned back to face me. “What if I could afford a car? Or a bike?”

“Stop this.”

“Even riding those secretary birds woul-“

I put my hands on her back and hugged her. “Stop! That’s all in the past.” I pulled her closer just as she was about to open her mouth. “No one in this world have the right to blame you. None of this is your fault. This is the driver’s fault.”

“But how else am I supposed to stop feeling sad? Blaming myself is all I have.”

“You have me.” I hugged her so close I could feel her breath on my neck. She put her hands on my chest and pulled away. Then she kissed me. I couldn’t force myself to remove my lips from hers. Why did I remain here? Why didn’t I stop her?

When did I start wanting her? Her wedding? Her first meeting with my brother? Her first meeting with me? I need this kiss.

She moved her lips away. I gave her back a stronger kiss. She didn’t resist.

Wasn’t this on the Bible? ‘Her husband’s brother shall take her’? Yes it is. I shall take her.

I reluctantly stopped the kiss just so I can remove her top. I then unhooked her bra and untied my tie, before tying it on her. The blue tie lay between her breasts. “Just let it lay there. I love it that way.” I pulled the end close to her nipples and moved it around her left nipple. The light, dry cloth moved easily across her smooth skin. Before long the end touched the top of her nipple. I used the tipping to cover her nipple and sucked it through the tie. My other hand went underneath her trousers. Her panties were wet.

“Wait. He wasn’t this fast.”

“I am not him.” I removed her trousers. “I’m sorry.” I looked at her almost naked body and gulped. I could not see much in this darkness, but the sensation of her smooth skin caused my fingers to shiver. The sounds of her weak breathing made my heart beat faster. Even in this darkness I could still see her brown eyes looking elsewhere. “You’re beautiful.” She remained silent as I removed my trousers.

I thrust into my brother’s widow. She moaned and arched her back, slamming her thin stomach into mine. She put her hands behind my neck and whispered, “Kiss me.” I did so while I continued thrusting. Due to my height, my torso almost completely covered hers, my chin at the same level as her eyes. I felt the cloth of the tie moving about on lower chest, as if its soft material lapped at me, adding to the pleasure.

I looked at her eyes and pinched one of her earlobe. “I love you.”

Perhaps her smile had been override by her moaning.

She pushed me away as I was about to finish. I ejaculated on her tiny stomach. Few small droplets land on my blue tie. I wiped it all away with my shirt.

I stood up from the bed. What do I do now? “I meant it when I said I love you.”

She turned her back against me. “I’m your brother’s wife.”

“Isn’t it in the bible that the husband’s brother should take the widow to become his?”

She was silent for a few moments. “Is my son in heaven now?”

“…yes.”

“He flew to heaven on angel wings, didn’t he?”

“Yes?”

“Have you noticed the secretary birds around here?”

“Yes.”

“They mate forever. They remain even after their chick had taken flight.”

It’s over. I then wore my suit and walked to her. “He bought me that tie. I’m returning it.” I leaned down to kiss her. She stopped me.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?
DEADLINE IN 56 MINUTES

Capntastic
Jan 13, 2005

A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Performance Review Seven
(840 Words, focus on Meaningful Dialogue)

Entering the door to the boss's office and taking a seat in one flowing motion, Pamella was ready to defend herself in her seventh annual performance review. The neat edges of her boss's minimalist decor and furniture was a contrast to the rest of the back room's disarray of stashed boxes and hidden caches of supplies. Immediately across the artificially gleaming formica desk, the boss got things rolling.

"So Pamella, you've been with us for seven years." he said. "In that time you've been something of a valued addition to our work force."

He slid a sheet of paper with her employee information back and forth an inch across the desk, adjusting it to his gaze. He shifted it again. Pam filled the silence.

"Yes, it's hard to believe, but seven years sound right. I was hired... hm, yeah, Fall of 2005. Or Autumn. Time flies, right?"

The boss nodded for a few seconds, making sure she was finished talking.

"In that time you've been deployed to most departments. You started in clothes, right?"

"Home goods, actually. It doesn't say that on there?" she said. It took restraint not to lean forward and see what the form said about her.

"It does, it's just not listed chronologically. Home goods. Alright." He twitched the paper a millimeter. "Electronics, customer service, beverages..."

"Yeah, I've done it all, really."

"And what would you say your best applications are? That is, when you're working in beverages, what is your best aspect?"

She paused thoughtfully. She was ignoring that she was, for whatever reason, digging her fingernails into her knees.

"With beverages, it's really about the labels. You face all of the labels the right way, make the displays look nice. And when you have a moment, you read them, make sure you know what you're selling. I've never liked wine, but if someone wants something dry or whatever I can tell them all about the ones we have."

"Right. Okay. And what department are you in now?"

"Clothes." Her eyes lowered to the paper for a second before reverting to proper eye contact.

"And are you enjoying it?"

There was a moment of slow exhalation on Pamella's end.

"Well, it's on par with any other department. Just read the tags. Lots of people have problems finding the sizes they want, and I can't really help with that. Other than that sort of thing, it's pretty easy to keep the displays neat."

"I understand. But what is one area you think you could improve on?"

"Well..." she said, feigning more thoughtfulness. "Suggestive selling can always be improved; telling people what things would match the outfits they're putting together, that sort of thing. I'm no fashion bug, but I think I could be a little bit more..."

"Right." the boss said. "Yeah, all of that is important."

Pamella was waiting for whatever was going to be said to be said, now.

"I'll level with you," he said, keeping his eyes on the sheet of paper as he drew it towards himself. "We don't do these reviews just to waste time; if there's a problem, we already know about it. We do these reviews because we like to make sure our employees are getting the most out of their opportunities here."

He glanced up, and Pamella responded with a precisely eager nod.

"The way things are, we want to make sure we're not going to end up with an employee base that is anything less than motivated. I can tell that you put a lot of thought into your work, and that you've been with us loyally for years and will continue to do so. I appreciate your honesty."

"Thank you, I really do try." Pamella said.

"Right. So next Monday, I think we're going to be putting you in the clothing section. You should be able to pick it up quick, we'll have one of the old hands there train you. I think it'll be a good match for you."

He stood up while tossing the sheet onto the stack of folders behind him, and reached across the desk to give her a handshake.

"I'm looking forward to it." she said, meeting him halfway on the gesture.

She put on her sunglasses as she left the store, ready to begin the long weekend. A drive up the coast, a meet up with friends at some of the hidden restaurants and diners they'd always talked up. And after all of that, the perfect capstone of going to work again.

She got into her car and rolled down the windows. With her phone she called her friend, instantly on the offense to get her words in.

"Yeah, I just got out of there. Really looking forward to going in to my new job on Tuesday. You know how long I've wanted to be a photographer. Oh, I don't really care. All of the clothes in the world could stay on the ground forever so long as I don't have to ever have an eighth performance review."

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Kitchen Sink Romantic Comedy

After Closing
782 words

Raggedy Jim was sprawled under a table, snoring. Again. Heckleston Judd, proprietor of the Hovering Ferret and man of no small stature in the greater Theakston-Battersby area, set his teeth. Ridiculous. Unacceptable.

"Sally ANNE!" roared Heckleston. Across the pub, currently empty apart from furniture and the recumbently somnolent figure of its last, unwanted patron, Sally Anne Stockingforth jerked at the summons. She hit her head on the underside of the bar with a solid thunk. Sally bit back a string of words, each more toe-curling than the last. It was no easy task.

Heckleston frowned, wondering if the thump and ensuing hissing noise might be a gas leak. When Sally poked her head, a little redder than its usual shade - peaches, cream and a hint of raspberry essence, perhaps - over the bar he dismissed the thought. "That gyppo you're sweet on," Hecklston announced with a hint of vindictive triumph, "is karked out under the bay leaner. Again."

Sally opened her mouth to explain that she wasn't 'sweet' on anyone let alone a drifting gentleman of the road of no fixed abode, or, occasionally, apparel. Then, having made a brief prognosticatory forecast of where that conversation might lead, she closed it again.

"Yes Mr Judd," she said. She glanced at the slops tray she'd been unclogging then back at her employer. Heckleston was still staring at her, and seemed only a moment away from a tap of the foot or a pointed look at his watch. Sally smiled weakly, and stood up, undoing her apron as she crossed the room. Seeing her thus bent to his will, Heckleston sniffed, nodded and stalked off to find something else needing his proprietorial critique.

Raggedy Jim did not rouse at Sally's first, gentle shake of his shoulder. Nor her second. But when she added a soft entreaty, his eyes flicked open like window blinds. They were shockingly blue, she couldn't help but notice. And his teeth, when he smiled, were white.

"Sir, the pub has closed," she said. She found herself smiling back at him. "You have to go home. Or, um. You have to go."

He chuckled, a soft low noise, but showed no sign of abandoning his supine pose. There was a clatter and a rumble from a back room as Heckleston embarked on a sweeping reorganisation of the broom cupboard.

"Piercing irony it is," the man mused, propping up his head with an elbow, "to be woken from heavenly dreams by one who might have been the angel within them."

Sally blushed again, rolled her eyes, kneeled down. "That's delightful flowery, Mr James, but I really need to get you out of here before Mr Judd comes back."

The man nodded thoughtfully. "I should... get up, then," he suggested.

Sally nodded. Raggedy Jim sighed, extended a leg for purchase and extracted his gangly but well-formed self from beneath the high table. Sally noticed that his clothes, which had given him his name in the village, were patched and worn but not particularly unclean.

He brushed a little dust off his coat and looked around absently, as though seeking his coach. In all things, Sally thought, he had the manner of a gentleman temporarily embarrassed rather than a gleaner on the outskirts of decent society; to which latter category - by every available account among the village - he firmly belonged.

Sally crossed to the door of the pub, pulled back the hasp of the lock and opened it wide. A frolicking zephyr of warm night air entered, then departed in search of more boisterous company. Raggedy Jim showed no sign of doing likewise, instead choosing that moment to yawn. He covered his mouth with an indolent hand.

Sally glanced at the door to the back room. No more sounds came from the broom cupboard but she had a sudden piercing premonition that he was about to reappear.

"Please, Mr James. Jim. Just head on out and I'll see you tomorrow," she pleaded.

He considered her proposition and nodded, regally. Sally slumped in relief, then noted with alarm his upraised finger.

"But, sweet lady, I must first demand a gift, a boon," he proclaimed. "A kiss. One single kiss, a solitary osculation."

Sally raised her eyebrow, considered. Then she held out her hand, which Raggedy Jim took with the grace of a dandy. He brushed it with his lips, winked, and sailed out into the perfumed night like a ship of the line newly christened at Portsmouth.

Behind her Heckleston slammed open the back door and began another expostulation, the intent and content of which seemed, suddenly, oddly irrelevant. Sally Anne hung upon the door, staring out at the night, smiling.

Iroel
Jun 28, 2012
Well I'm sorry for the little delay. It's just that writing the story made me very uncomfortable. Since the structure is fairly important for the story I will paste a link to the doc file. If there is anything I can do for making it less inconvenient let me know.

Stretch Out and Wait

830 words. Sci-Fi and narrative in paragraphs.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58396073/Stretch%20out.docx

Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.

Bad Seafood posted:

Woe Is Me Bullshit.
Huh, that reads a lot more self-pityingly than I actually intended.

Requesting permission to edit out unintentional self-pity unless Thunderdome protocol demands I stand by my shame.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









twinkle cave posted:

I feel the darkness closing in!

A fair judgement. The idea behind it was 5 stages of grief. But a fail to get that across is a complete fail. The only way to improve is throw my body into the fray.

I'm also rather pleased that my after work daily demeanor = "free-associating into a dictaphone about six hours into a ketamine binge." This perhaps means I can just quit drinking.

You really put us against the wall with that prompt... drat HARD!

I just went back and applied these to the story - it's still flawed, but knowing that would have definitely helped working it out. You could have given the stages their Kubler Ross headings, and it would have become an enjoyable puzzle. And it wouldn't have been too obvious, I don't think.

Noah
May 31, 2011

Come at me baby bitch
Thanks for doing the judging/proctoring Sebmojo. I really enjoyed it. I'm always down for another one, if anyone else wants to slog it out.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Benagain posted:

Picker
364 Words

The truck goes down the alley slow
nosing among the scattered dross, looking
for metal-sign, the glints and telltale sheen,
which lead to castoff treasures, abandoned gold.

The cab is silent today, no music
that kind of day. That kind of mood. He smokes
rolls down the window just a crack, cold breeze
outside whispering through, fingerless gloves
one tapping ash, one loosely on the wheel.

Eyes darting ceaselessly, searching for scrap
When found, it will be pried apart, gutted
then thrown together in the high walled bed,
piled haphazardly, bound together with rope.

Mostly it takes no time, no time at all.
Hops out the truck, grab it, throw, back in, gone.
The big ones, though, they need some care, some focus.

Like this one, almost blocking the way
left carelessly, with hope that someone else
would deal with it, remove the problem, please.

He stops the truck, steps out deliberately
strides towards the prize, a sofa bed, angled
up, pointing skyward, stained and forgotten,
hard frame beneath soft foam and cloth, the ax
swung high to crash upon it, stuffing thrown
into the air like snow, the harsh shriek of
metal on metal, clawing out the bones.

The gutted carcass left behind, he stoops
dragging the mangled frame behind him slowly
cacophony on pavement drawing stares
from passers-by, muttering, dark looks, follow
clinging to him like garbage stink. He's used
to both. Deals with them every day. Doesn't care.

He stoops and straightens, heaves the jangled mess
refusing to cooperate, the truck
not helping either, worn out springs sagging,
unpredictable. He keeps on
grits his teeth, growls from his chest, ignores the crowd,
laughing at him, chuckling down in their throats.

When he gets it on, cheers
the crowd clapping as he dusts off
walks stiffly to the door, applause
heralding his ascent to the seat, cheers
as he shifts gears and rolls the window closed
smoke already thickening up.

The engine's belching rumble echoes back
from tight-packed buildings crowded round,
exhaust billowing out behind, cold cloud
white in the morning frost, weak sun throwing
pale light on piles of trash and worn-out goods.

Dumdedoo, waiting for the crit assignments. While I'm waiting - this is some good poo poo, Benagain. Specifically I like the rhythm, the focus of the images, the simplicity of the actions described. My only suggestion is to tighten it up - poetry is all about getting rid of words that aren't carrying the load.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Noah posted:

Thanks for doing the judging/proctoring Sebmojo. I really enjoyed it. I'm always down for another one, if anyone else wants to slog it out.

For everyone - Thunderbrawls are now a new Thunderdome tradition. Feel free to challenge anyone at any time. There is no standard for format or number of stories, as long as it's flash fiction and doesn't suck. Anyone who backs down for whatever reason - work, school, "new girlfriend :lol:" - will be shameful indeed.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

Bad Seafood posted:


Requesting permission to edit out unintentional self-pity unless Thunderdome protocol demands I stand by my shame.

PERMISSION DENIED.

Crit pairings coming up shortly.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

Iroel posted:

Well I'm sorry for the little delay. It's just that writing the story made me very uncomfortable. Since the structure is fairly important for the story I will paste a link to the doc file. If there is anything I can do for making it less inconvenient let me know.

Stretch Out and Wait

830 words. Sci-Fi and narrative in paragraphs.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58396073/Stretch%20out.docx

I'm letting your lateness slide only because there isn't an equal number of entries to pair up if I don't, you buttlord :argh:

CRITIQUE PARTNERS:
Benagain & Surreptitious Muffin

Martello & supermikhail

Bad Seafood & Iorel

twinkle cave & Beezle Bug

toanoradian & STONE OF MADNESS

sebmojo & Symptomless Coma

Capntastic & swaziloo

Zack_Gochuk & Noah

I will confer with the other judges and hand down a judgement or whatever at some point in the next 24 hours. Have fun critiquing each other in the meantime (I'll be watching you :ninja: )

supermikhail
Nov 17, 2012


"It's video games, Scully."
Video games?"
"He enlists the help of strangers to make his perfect video game. When he gets bored of an idea, he murders them and moves on to the next, learning nothing in the process."
"Hmm... interesting."
:gonk: So I'm paired with a mammoth of Thunderdome, and have to do his poetry. This will be more of a challenge than the actual challenge. I guess my partner would be pleased to know that his are first pieces of poetry I'm going to read in... like, five years? (Unless you count lyrics, of course.) I need to get something to drink. Something good. A lot of it... Seriously, how do you distinguish good poetry from bad? Am I supposed to try to sing it?

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 107 days!
Soiled Meat
Poetry's pretty much all about idea and emotion, and how well they're evoked. If you think it has good ideas and it stirs an appropriate emotion in you, that's a pretty good indication that it works as a poem. Everything else is teasing apart the bits that work and the bits that don't, and the rule of thumb is that the stuff that sits badly with you is the stuff that needs work (most forms of poetry have flow, and stuff that breaks the flow without doing so to evoke a good effect is generally a problem).

If you've never criticised poetry before, my advice would be not to get too hung up on the technicalities. To put it into context, most writing on metre is bullshit: it just happens to be bullshit that's useful a lot of the time. Go with how it speaks to you, and try and figure out why, and where it does this well and where it fails. If you can relate those things to the poet you'll provide a useful criticism even if you lack the technical skill to give a in-depth critique.

Iroel
Jun 28, 2012
I thank the judges for their clemency and i add that i'm happy to be paired with bad seafood since i tend to enjoy stream of conciousness.

For poetry i would add to try to understand the author's intention too. When something doesn't seem right ask yourself why the author could have done that choice. You won't necessary come to an answer but you will acquire the charitable disposition that is essential to understand texts that have to deal with a high degree of vagueness.

STONE OF MADNESS
Dec 28, 2012

PVTREFACTIO

toanoradian posted:

The Bible vs. the Bird (999 words)
Dark sensual realistic romantic erotica. With a secretary bird that must not die, and crushing poverty, and a religious crutch

Hi toanoradian -

I'm going through this pretty closely, it's a long post.

I liked this when I first read it, and I still think it's pretty good, ideas-wise. I felt the melancholy straight off the bat, and you used some great imagery throughout the piece, even if by mandate (ie. secretary birds). Of course, there are some things that could be polished.


I ended up rampaging all over your piece being very critical and unpleasant like a total rear end in a top hat, who run Bartertown? MASTER BLASTER

You express some subtle ideas, but a few of them suffer from sentences that don't quite make the point; the first sentence is a good example.

quote:

Running to that loosely connected bricks she called a house wouldn’t undo time.

You want to say that there was no point in hastening because the worst had already happened, but it doesn't quite convey that meaning, not on first reading anyway. Trying to cram in how ramshackle her house is kills it, in my opinion - I get that you were battling the word count, but you may have been better off leaving this out, or expressing it somewhere else. In any case, the sentence needs to be reformulated; you need something in keeping with your lyrical approach.
I'd put it something like this: "I left my car at the beach, and walked over to that dump he'd called a house. There was no point in hurrying; time had already run out. The winds..."

One thing to be wary of is framing things in terms of your character in situations where there is no benefit. In the second paragraph, "I saw her sitting on the floor" could just as easily be "She was sitting on the floor". You're going to have to differentiate between who sees or does what at some point, but here, where it isn't necessary, you're missing an opportunity to directly report what was seen without distancing us from it by inserting a narrator. Of course, if you're using the perception-event to illustrate the character, (ie. he sees things in a certain way, or he always used to be blind or something) go ahead and do it, but in this case we don't learn anything about the 'I' beyond the fact that he saw something.

The rest of this paragraph troubles me too. She still prepares food for three; she only poured tea for two. The contrast is subtle and what it indicates, about her emotional transition, is powerful, but the meaning is lost in sentences that lack interest. Some of these are just dull (sorry) and you could spice them up with a little effort, I'll give an example below. The chief problem is that believe it or not you are telling, not showing. At first glance this is not really obvious, but while you're showing us the symptom, the behaviour, you're actually telling us how to interpret it.
"She still prepared food for three." Right away you've told us that she's doing this despite something; instead, let the contrast with the teacups speak for itself.

Ok so the sentence about teacups is dull, as are many of the bitsy, matter-of-fact sentences like it in this piece. Nothing wrong with short and sweet, but in this case you're making it a chore.
"The steam from two of the cups gave a smell of tea."
It's a bad sentence; let's just take a moment to excoriate this sucker. First off, we are left hanging as to whether there is steam from the third cup that doesn't give a smell of tea. Secondly, it's an awkward, passive construction. Thirdly, 'a smell of tea' is the least interesting way you could express the smell of tea. I'm bored reading about her table and consequently I miss the significance of the three plates/two cups thing and I actually skim the bit about her smile being so weak.
You could say: "She was sitting on the floor. I noticed that the table had been set for three; she'd served the rice already and poured tea, two cups, one for her and one for me. She'd burnt the fish."

Moving on...

Okay, so as not to ramble on forever, I'm just going to nitpick little things from here on in; awkward constructions, word clutter, and other things you seem to be in the habit of doing.

- If she lifted a cup of tea at me, I would recoil in horror as I don't like to be scalded

- The conversation about doctors is a little unclear but the sentence "Not like I can pay any if they can." has a conflict of tenses and demonstrates why you should try to vary your language. When you repeat words within a sentence (or in the space of a couple of sentences) it can be jarring. Not like I CAN pay any if they CAN. Not to mention that these 'cans' should be 'coulds'.

- Word clutter. "She then tried to hide her cracked lips with behind her bony fingers." Still too cluttered though. Try rewriting until you only say 'her' once (it is possible). Aim to use a word once per sentence, maximum, unless you have a good reason. Even 'the', 'and', 'of'. When you can't, you can't, but you sure could here.

- "Even slapping my own lips" and "Her bed should be too small for three" - you're going for subtlety, but you're not going to get it with these clunkers. Great ideas, execution not so much. You're not too far away, though. And if you want to say, "It felt claustrophobic, like he was in there, too," then for the purposes of dark, sensual smut you may as well just say it.
Again, I stress, the ideas themselves are good.

- 'lay' or 'laid' not 'lied', moving 'it' not 'them', etc. Tenses, too.

- “Even riding those secretary birds would-" trust me this is better

OKAY SKIPPING TO THE SEX NOW

The narrator is a sick gently caress because even though he's grieffucking his brother's wife, he can't help but introduce some mild kink. I like that you've taken this direction; very modish. That said, prose-wise there is a sort of :roboluv: vibe goin' on. It is not the worst sex I have read, and it's hard to write smut for a waiting, critical audience, but you could inject a little more feeling into what otherwise boils down to BLEEP BLOOP TROUSERS REMOVED. There is too much physiology, and not enough emotion; some of the sentences read like you're batting Barbie dolls together. You need to milk this sex for sorrow, and while you certainly try, it reads as though you've staggered your perverted widow-romp with statements about how upset she is. The two must come together in depressing, yet erotic synthesis.

Bringing back the secretary bird motif was a deft touch. Okay it's absurd because you HAVE to say 'secretary bird', but you pulled it off, so to speak. You could probably axe the line in the middle about riding them; once at the start and once at the finish is nice. And the Bible was well-integrated too.

In summary then, a story strong on themes and mood, but pretty weak on sentence construction and word choices. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a good rewrite and a robust proofreading, but then it depends how much time you want to spend on secretary bird smut relative to other projects that you might have going on...

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

supermikhail posted:

:gonk: So I'm paired with a mammoth of Thunderdome, and have to do his poetry. This will be more of a challenge than the actual challenge. I guess my partner would be pleased to know that his are first pieces of poetry I'm going to read in... like, five years? (Unless you count lyrics, of course.) I need to get something to drink. Something good. A lot of it... Seriously, how do you distinguish good poetry from bad? Am I supposed to try to sing it?

You'll be fine.

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW

supermikhail posted:

Seriously, how do you distinguish good poetry from bad? Am I supposed to try to sing it?

He wrote it. You can begin with the assumption it's bad.

Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe
Do the words make you feel things? Could they make you feel things more efficiently? Martello sucks.

These are the three pillars of your judgement.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

He wrote it. You can begin with the assumption it's bad.

You ain't been on gtalk in over 24 hours. Way to make me think you were dead, douche. Get on, we have things to discuss.

Noah
May 31, 2011

Come at me baby bitch
For Zack Gochuck

Stella finally figured it out. Bernard was a one-eyed ogre! That’s why he was 700 pounds at age 15. He wasn’t fat like Troy had said. He wasn’t a weirdo like Nancy had said. He wasn’t even an exchange student from Madagascar like the principal told everyone. He was an ogre. She was surprised no one else noticed. I think you’re missing a better way to open it up. Instead of the realization that he’s an ogre (which is apparently commonplace) start by explaining what makes him so attractive as an ogre. This segment has real promise to poke fun at traits women might like in a mate, yet they’re being exhibited by an ogre.

The other girls went for jocks and theatre geeks, but something about the eight-and-a-half-foot-tall freshman drew Stella in. Everyone assumed he sat alone at lunch because he took up and entire table, but Stella saw something fragile, almost spiritual. Each day, she admired the delicacy with which he ground leftover bones into bread and slathered them in jam. This should be combined into paragraph one. You don’t need to waste time setting up that she hadn’t realized he was an ogre. Neither had we, the reader is coming into this fresh. There’s no reason to pretend we don’t know to start off with.

The world had no place for an eight-and-a-half-foot-tall, 700 pound, one-eyed ogre, just as it had no place for Stella. She thought that maybe, just maybe, they could find their place together. A place with a ground-level entrance and reinforced flooring. But the problem is, everyone seems a-okay with Bernard. If no one notices him, then clearly he’s got a place.

Everything was set. Bernard was going to come over and meet her parents and have dinner on the 22nd. There’s no set up for this. Scoot this to the front of your story, and start it here.

On the big day, Stella put on a yellow dress. She looked in the mirror, shook her head and threw ither head? in the closet. Simple. Keep things simple. She put on a blouse. Keep going. Let her say its simple, and have her keep changing. You’re going for farcical, don’t stop. Mom was making salmon. What if Bernard didn’t like Salmon? She stared herself down in the mirror, “Stop worrying. It’ll be fine.” You can even punch this up instead, instead of “Does Bernard even like salmon?” you can point out what Bernard does like in a humorous tone. “Does Bernard like anything other than eating raw meat/hobbits/unicorns?”

Three loud knocks at the door. Then a grunt. Then Bernard’s size 32 boot kicked the door off its hinges. Why does he bother knocking? Just have him be an ogre right off the bat He was dressed in a loincloth. Turtlenecks for 700 pound, eight-and-a-half-foot-tall, one-eyed ogres must have been on backorder down at the Gap. Now Stella is being sassy, but its not with her character. She should find it charming, not be annoyed by his appearance.

“Bernard,” Dad wore a sensible black polo, “So nice to finally meet you. You’re all Stella talks about! Put 'er there!” Cut out the descriptor of Dad, not necessary if you’re going for brevity.

Bernard tore dad’s arm off, grunted and ate it.

Dad nodded appreciatively, “Now that’s a nice stiff handshake. Just the other day I was saying how too many young men have weak handshakes. Never make it with a weak handshake.” End it with just the first line. You’re beating the joke with a severed arm.

The cat hissed and the hair on its back stood on end. Bernard stepped on it. you’ve already determined his barbarism, you don’t need to do it again. Maybe instead of him eating the dad’s arm he merely crushes it, he can eat the cat, whereupon the mom becomes worried he’s spoiled his appetite.

“That drat cat,” Dad pointed at a mound of goo under Bernard’s foot, “That’s no way to behave when we have a guest!” cut

At seven, everyone sat at the dinner table. Mom served Bernard first, “So Bernard, I hear you’re from Madagascar. Must be nice this time of the year.”

Bernard grunted and flipped over the table. Mom laughed, “Stella always goes for the kidders.” I think you’re missing an opportunity for a little more parental interaction, though it is kind of ruined with the table flipping. But what do they do for the next 2 hours? Board games? Maybe Bernard can be calmed down with hot chocolate? Maybe try playing with one last goofy thing that humanizes Bernard for a second to contrast his normal behavior, before setting him loose again to be an ogre.

At nine, Stella and her parents showed Bernard to the door. Dad nudged mom, “Let’s leave these two love birds alone so they can say goodnight, eh?”

Stella giggled, “Tonight went well, don’t you think?”

Bernard cradled her in his arms and raised her to his lips. Stella puckered up. Her first kiss. It was perfect.

Bernard grunted, opened his mouth and swallowed her whole. Would he really wait to eat her? The ending feels a little forced. I’d rather see Bernard give her one of the grossest, tonguey-ist/barbaric kisses ever with keeping with ogre behavior, and then have Stella yearn for more as he leaves.

As for the prompt, going for Romance, I don’t think you went for it. This was definitely a humorous piece, this is more satire and farcical in nature than romance. Also, what was so unimportant about the event? It was clearly very important for the main character. A funny reversal could be told from the perspective of the ogre who has no concept of dating, and is attending someone’s house for dinner is beyond his comprehension. This is just a thing he has to do, and doesn’t get it.

Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe
Fer Surreptitious Muffin

Matters of proprietary


“I'm sorry Mr. Sotheby but Sotheby's holds the copyright to your name. You may under no circumstances call your-” James Arnold stopped and sniffed. The shop was crowded with the sort of strange knick-knack that people seem to love; 5p gee-gaws from trade-aid shops from every benighted county in England. Snowglobes and fake watches and in one corner, some sort of large clay pipe in the shape of a man clutching tightly to his oversized-

I like this bit of description here. You can instantly picture the place

phallus corrected Arnold, before his internal monologue took a turn into dangerous territory.

Not sure what the 'before his internal monologue' bit was supposed to be doing. If you were trying to go for a 'gay but doesn't want to be' I don't think you had the space and it kind of just sits there unnoticed. I would've dropped it and just left him correcting himself. Or just have him call it a phallus because that right there tells you a lot about the guy.

“-your emporium Sotheby's.” His glare fell on the fake Mr. Sotheby, “and unless you change the name by the end of the fiscal year, we will be forced to take legal action,” he said. There, it was all out in the open. Arnold turned his body slightly, to avoid having to see the indecent pipe. Sotheby noticed though, his bloodhound eyes perking up.

Think this should be a linebreak“Oh Sir, you've seen the peace pipe. Why, my wife Elda, God-Rest-Her-Soul, bought it back from Peru about fifteen years ago. They say if you blow-”

“That's quite enough, Mr. Sotheby. I believe we are done here. I'll leave you with the paperwork,” said Arnold as he beat a hurried retreat in the face of the Fake Sotheby's aggressive earnestness. The bell over the door gave a sad little jangle as he left, leaving Sotheby in the dark with his things. The peace-pipe loomed menacingly, casting the shadow of a clay mushroom onto the wrinkled hangdog of a man below.

“Elda,” he said, “what should I do, Elda?”

He looked up at the pipe, then down at his shaking hands and that very night, he hatched a plan.

'that very night he hatched a plan' feels off. You could've just left it at 'what should I do Elda.'
***


~ CLOSING DOWN PARTIE FREE DIRNKS AN SAUSAGES ~

SOTHEBY'S WONDERMENT EMPROIUM IS REGRETTABLIE SHUTTING IT'S DOORS BUT WE ARE GOING OUT WITH A BASH.

JANURY 22ND 4PM

RESPONDAY SEAL VOO PLAY

NOE PLUS ONES.


I like this. I like all your bolded things actually.

Arnold's lip twitched as he read the letter. “You are cordially invited,” Why is he quoting something that's not in the letter?he muttered. He laughed despite himself. Why not? It would be a fittingly sad end to the sad little shop that had caused him so much grief. His client has been on the receiving end of no less than three lawsuits after products bought at “Sotheby's” turned out to be less valuable than advertised. None of them had succeeded but they'd wasted a lot of time and made the grand old house look bad for the press.

Not really a good explanation about why the hell this lawyer guy is going here. It's a stupid little thing but I did not get the sense that this was a funloving guy with time to kill and yet here he is going to an almost assuredly lovely party at a place he doesn't like just to gloat.

Well, I've nothing better to do this afternoon he thought. He opened his closet and picked out his best suit. He hoped the other partygoers would appreciate it and at the very least, it would inject some class into the occasion. “Well,” he said to himself, “time to meet the hoi polloi.”

Nope, you lost me. I have no idea what this guy's deal is. You kind of set up two different interpretations of his character and now they're clashing. Or you tried to give him depth but didn't have the time to explore it, either way.

***


“Hello?” said Arnold. The shop was dark and quiet. He noted with some satisfaction that the 'peace pipe' had been taken off the shelf. The Fake Sotheby must've caught onto his faux pas and put it away. It was either that or someone bought the thing, which was too horrible to even contemplate.

The door swung closed with a little jangling of bells. “Mr. Arnold sir,” said a small voice. Arnold jumped hard enough that he almost slammed into a shelf of snowglobes. The little man was standing behind him, shrouded in shadow. Only his eyes were visible, shining and red-rimmed. He took a step forward and the lawyer noticed the vulgar clay impliment in his hands. “I had a talk with Elda and we agreed to keep the shop the way it is, sir.”

“Your- your wife, man? You said she was dead.”

“Yessir, these last 15 years. We had her cremated.”

Arnold's gaze was now fixed solidly on the pipe. “You surely don't mean-” So wait, is he smoking his wife, or is the wife baked into the pipe, or what?

“I surely do, Sir,” said Sotheby. He stretched himself out to full height and Arnold became accutely aware that the antique dealer was less a small man than a giant of a man all bundled up. He was unbundled now and his head touched the roof. The pipe was made of hard, red clay. It looked much larger up close. “There's no party Sir, that much should be apparent by now, especially for a smart gent like yourself. Now I'm not a man of letters but I know about men and I know you and your dogs are going to keep on coming back unless I give you something … special.”
I like that big man bundled up small bit. You've got good descriptors.


He raised the pipe high and Arnold cowered. All he could think of were headlines

LOCAL MAN MORTIFIED BY BIG COCK
REVENGE OF THE INCAS: MUCHO PENIS

or maybe even
PROMINENT LAWYER GETS SKULL hosed

Again, these are loving great.

and sombre police officers with a row of stone dildos and the lone witness saying “yes, that one!”

His whole life went before his eyes and it was horribly boring. “I never did see Belfast,” he managed to say before the clay connected squarely with his palms.

“I saw you looking at it Sir and I straight away knew you liked it. If I give you my wife Elda's peace pipe, will you leave us alone? A man like you probably has a very stressful job and could do with a little release from time to time if you know what I mean,” Sotheby said with terrifying geniality. Is there weed in the pipe. Is this secret code for sucking dick. I have no idea!

“Yes, yes of course,” said Arnold. He took the pipe in two hands, scared the hammering of his heart would shatter the clay. “I have never been more grateful, Mr. Sotheby. You really don't know what this means to me,” he said. The little-big man was grinning ear to ear. “Oh I knew it. You have a lovely day Sir,” he said.

The bells jangled once last time and James Arnold hit the street, clay bong in hand. He looked at it and its tiny clay eyes looked back. “Yes,” he said, “I could use a little stress release.” I can't stop seeing all this as a metaphor for sex. Am I supposed to?

He had never meant anything so much in his entire life.

This has some funny bits but I have no idea what happened. Why did this dude throw a fake party? Why did he act like his dead wife was talking to him? Also the headlines were great but they actually hurt the story since I'm just reacting to the jokes instead of getting more information about what the hell is going on. Possibly the dude should've come visit the lawyer in his office for an interesting role reversal, bringing the peace-pipe as a gift?

I liked individual bits of this a lot. When you were trying to be funny it worked, I loved the headlines and the fake dick. It just never seemed to gell. I actually think this would be awesome with a rework and more words, I can see this being a longer story. Takeaway: Good humor, crappy story, you might have tried to do too much with not enough room to work in. Also seriously what's up with this guy's wife and are he and the lawyer gay?

Beezle Bug
Jun 5, 2009

I love painting trees.
Alright twinkle cave, I will try to do for you what you have done for so many of us before. Horror is my favorite genre and I am hungover and hate everything right now so I guess we'll see where that takes us!

twinkle cave posted:

THUNDERDOME WEEK XXII: Schroedinger's Nihilarian

The Prompt:

A person who deals with things lacking importance

The place outside my box that wicked Fanky forced me to go: HORROR
(999 words)

The Attic

Jane came home from work early and noticed the closet door in her spare room was open. She didn't remember leaving it open. She shut the door and moved on with her day. starts really strong, I really dig these lines. Casual, subtle, red flags really go a long way

That evening she made her nightly walk to the grocery store. She lived alone, and with the store only a block away it made more since sense! to shop for her meals daily.

She rounded the apartment complex, a 12 unit row of single story brick. She watched for her neighbor, Ms. Haber, the old lady that kept a vigil to snag someone for boorish conversation. not a big fan of this line, not a big fan of the flow here. Unsure how I'd change it though Sometimes Jane slipped out the back door to avoid her. Jane's lowest point in dealing with Ms. Haber involved a death.

"My sister died," Ms. Haber said, "the funeral was today." Ms. Haber thought she had her.

"I'm really sorry to hear that," Jane said, and quickly moved past her. "I hope everything is ok," she said before shutting the door in Ms. Haber's face. Never even broke stride. She's never tried to be my friend, she just wants someone to unload on.

On her way to the grocery store a man was sitting on a bench in front of the library reading a newspaper. It was strange because he sat next to the bronze memorial statue of the library founder. A statue of a man reading a newspaper. She felt the man's eyes scan her from across the top of the paper as she walked by. She got the sense that he was waiting on her.

She bought her groceries and returned. The man was gone. When she got home she cooked her meal, watched a bit of TV, then went to bed. That night she thought she heard scraping. Probably Ms. Haber, she thought and went back to sleep.

The next night on her walk to the store she noticed a letter tapped to the statue's metal newspaper. It was written in messy child's handwriting. A list to Santa Clause. Thinking it was cute she snapped a picture. same issue as with Ms. Haber's boorish conversations



When she got home she got ready to share her funny photo with friends, but when she uploaded she noticed something strange. "Check your attic," was written at the bottom of the page. She hadn't noticed it before. "Weird," she said aloud, "Glad I don't have an attic."

That night she heard the scraping again in her sleep. She had strange dreams of visiting an old attic. That morning, she woke up in a funk. She had a special client she was meeting and needed to look good. She went to her spare room's closet where she kept a lot of her rarely worn clothes. She reached into the top of the closet for a pair of boxed shoes when she noticed it. A little hatch in the ceiling. And it was open a crack. Jane shivered. She did have an attic.

She thought about moving on with her day, ignoring the oddity. But she couldn't. She reached up and pulled down the short string hanging from it. As the door opened a little ladder came sliding down. It was made of metal and ran on a set of hydraulics.

The floor felt like it slipped away. She nervously pawed at the ladder going up slowly. When she reached the top, she saw a lab. A room covered with electronics, screens, and chemistry equipment. After her initial shock she began to examine the room in earnest.

Along the corridor's floor were windows viewing into all the apartments below it. But what she saw wasn't her neighbors. Instead strange creatures. After seeing what looked like a giant praying mantis, a yeti, and a tiny man, she went to Ms. Haber's window. Expecting the worse, she edged over and took a look. But all she saw was Ms. Haber sitting in a wing backed chair.

At that moment Ms. Haber's door bell rang. A courier. Ms. Haber began to go into her usual routine of incessant droning on, then Jane noticed it. A hole began to open in Ms. Haber's chest. A strange sucking black hole. It got bigger and bigger as she talked. Slowly a white glowing light started to be pulled from the courier's body. After several minutes, the man looked very tired and Ms. Haber shut the door.

Jane pulled back. She was horrified. Ms. Haber was some kind of succubus. She wanted to see what she'd do next. When Jane crept back to the window, Ms. Haber was looking straight into Jane's eyes. All the hairs on Jane's neck stood up. She backed away in shock and Ms. Haber smiled. these past few paragraphs are the peak of the story i think, things got weird and eerie without getting totally ridiculous and it was a nice twist

Scrambling back down the ladder, Jane decided to go out the backdoor. Ms. Haber was standing outside waiting for her. "Where you going sweety," she said, that wicked smile still plastered to her face.

Jane ran down the street. Her car was parked in front of the apartments and she was too scared to go to it. She headed to the grocery store hoping for safety in a public place.

As she went she noticed the man from the library was back at the bench next to the statue. She began cross the street thinking he might be a creature himself, but the man got up and grabbed her arm.

"Follow me," he said.

Jane tried to pull away. "Stop," she screamed.

"Shush," he said, "We have to get out of here. Now." He started to drag her to a car parked in front of the library. "Look, I know what you saw in the attic. You have to trust me. Both our lives are in danger."

"What?" she said, "Why is this happening?"

"I'm an overseer," he said, "It was my job to watch over all the creatures. But what they wanted to do to you... I couldn't stand for that."

"But I'm normal," she said, "I'm human."

"You're not human," he said, "you just think you are." and this is where it falls apart for me and I'll explain below.

While there are some really nice bits to this it kind of meanders and lacks coherency. Several lines are pretty choppy and it feels like, as a whole, the piece is tugging itself in a couple different directions. I don't understand why Jane had to not be human and I don't think the concept of her not being human fits very well with the other creatures being a threat to her. I'd have chosen to either go with her being a creature in denial or the creatures planning to do something wicked to her, not both. The concepts don't feel like they mesh too terribly well and it lessens any potential impact into a "wait, what?" moment.

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
Huh. The gay thing actually wasn't intentional; he's just meant to be super repressed and terrified of penises because they're improper. Now that you've said it, I can't stop seeing it either. All the double entendres about cock smoking are intentional but like, not in a gay way. :v:

(I can't believe I just wrote that)

The whole point was me trying to cram as many dicks into 1000 words as possible.

The original story was that he smoked his wife in the pipe, then killed the lawyer and smoked him too but I realised it was too obvious and canned it. It also skirted 'no altered states' too much. Also also I couldn't figure out where he got a furnace from. I left the part about the ashes in because it was funny but I see now, it's just kinda weird and confusing without context.

That pipe totally exists by the way. My old flatmate owns it.

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW
If your mate is flat, you better call a hospital.

twinkle cave
Dec 20, 2012

THUNDERBRAWL LOSER

sebmojo posted:

I just went back and applied these to the story - it's still flawed, but knowing that would have definitely helped working it out. You could have given the stages their Kubler Ross headings, and it would have become an enjoyable puzzle. And it wouldn't have been too obvious, I don't think.

Yeah, very flawed. I got down one road, then tried to turn back and realized intractable bits entangled... plus like you said it kinda reeks of just going all over the place talking all crazy stuff. i generally like the idea of a trippy voyage in the room of the mind with a bar and a grave in opposing corners. it needs a couple truck loads of concrete poured in it. thanks for taking a second look, and again for judging. I've written more in the last few weeks thanks to THUNDERDOME than i have in the last six months or so. Such a great concept!

twinkle cave
Dec 20, 2012

THUNDERBRAWL LOSER

Beezle Bug posted:

While there are some really nice bits to this it kind of meanders and lacks coherency. Several lines are pretty choppy and it feels like, as a whole, the piece is tugging itself in a couple different directions. I don't understand why Jane had to not be human and I don't think the concept of her not being human fits very well with the other creatures being a threat to her. I'd have chosen to either go with her being a creature in denial or the creatures planning to do something wicked to her, not both. The concepts don't feel like they mesh too terribly well and it lessens any potential impact into a "wait, what?" moment.

Thanks for the great critique. Trying to write HORROR was a real challenge. I probably could have cut quite a bit of mess in the middle and done more with the ending, plus not tying together the man at the statue and some of the other seeming ideas that go nowhere. I wasn't convinced by the end either. It just sorta happened. I like your suggestions, if i pick this up again it gives someplace to start thinking.

Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Huh. The gay thing actually wasn't intentional; he's just meant to be super repressed and terrified of penises because they're improper. Now that you've said it, I can't stop seeing it either. All the double entendres about cock smoking are intentional but like, not in a gay way. :v:

(I can't believe I just wrote that)

The whole point was me trying to cram as many dicks into 1000 words as possible.

The original story was that he smoked his wife in the pipe, then killed the lawyer and smoked him too but I realised it was too obvious and canned it. It also skirted 'no altered states' too much. Also also I couldn't figure out where he got a furnace from. I left the part about the ashes in because it was funny but I see now, it's just kinda weird and confusing without context.

That pipe totally exists by the way. My old flatmate owns it.

Yeah my current roommate owns one :v: Okay your original explanation makes this all make so much more sense. I stand by what I said, with a good rework this could be really cool and I enjoyed the funny bits. Maybe make it a gay romance where two men from different worlds find love and healing in each other's arms or something.

Symptomless Coma
Mar 30, 2007
for shock value
I've always thought that as a genre, Romantic Comedy is a pretty tough brief - 'romance' is 80% based on fortune, and 'comedy' is 80% based on misfortune. How on earth do you manipulate the empathy just so?

You sir, have performed a masterstroke. One of the most basic comic setups meets one of the most basic romances in an extremely economical 782 words. The only 'tweaks' I can find make themselves known because of how lean and precise the rest is, in fact. Because I can't remember how to crit thematically, I hope you'll forgive me for going line-by-line. Sweet lady.

After Closing - Sebmojo's Kitchen Sink Romantic Comedy of Unimportant Things

Raggedy Jim was sprawled under a table, snoring. Again. This is a bit of a cliche, but it's a fine way of dropping us into Heckleston's head before he speaks. Heckleston Judd, proprietor of the Hovering Ferret You enjoyed doing the names, didn't you? and man of no small stature in the greater Theakston-Battersby area, set his teeth. Ridiculous. Unacceptable. Great.

"Sally ANNE!" WILMA! roared Heckleston. Across the pub, currently empty apart from furniture and the recumbently somnolent figure of its last, unwanted patron, Sally Anne Stockingforth jerked at the summons. She hit her head on the underside of the bar with a solid thunk. Sally bit back a string of words, each more toe-curling than the last. It was no easy task. I get the idea, but for me this is a little overplayed - "each__ the last" is a cliche.

Heckleston frowned, wondering if the thump and ensuing hissing noise might be a gas leak. When Sally poked her head, a little redder than its usual shade - peaches, cream and a hint of raspberry essence, perhaps - over the bar slightly clumsy construction he dismissed the thought. The specific shade is a little too complicated for me to picture, but the effect is excellent - his complete misunderstanding of her. "That gyppo you're sweet on," Hecklston announced with a hint of vindictive triumph in whose judgement? If we're still in his head, would he be imagining himself as vindictive? It might be better to switch it all for 'said Heckleston' , "is karked out under the bay leaner. Again." You've used this joke in his inner monologue, is there another one? Or am I being unkind, and the joke is he's not very imaginative..?

Sally opened her mouth to explain that she wasn't 'sweet' on anyone let alone a drifting gentleman of the road of no fixed abode, or, occasionally, apparel. Classic line. You need a bit of clarity here to show that she swallowed these words in favour of just saying 'Mr. Judd'. This is the first time we really understand Sally's relationship with Heckleston - smarter than, but trapped by. Make it count. Then, having made a brief prognosticatory forecast of where that conversation might lead, she closed it again.
There's a bit of dodgy plot-logic here that I can't quite resolve by the end. Sally makes it clear to us and herself that she's not into Jim. And the 'again', used to show us that we're in the classic sitcom 'endless trap' is telling us that's she's had contact with Jim enough times to have formed an opinion. So her 'discovery' of him that's coming doesn't quite wash. Unless a line goes in about her having managed to avoid actually throwing him out up 'til today, but now she'll have to as Heckleston's cleaning.

"Yes Mr Judd," she said. She glanced at the slops tray she'd been unclogging then back at her employer. Heckleston was still staring at her, and seemed only a moment away from a tap of the foot or a pointed look at his watch. Basil Fawlty. Sally smiled weakly, and stood up, undoing her apron as she crossed the room. Seeing her thus bent to his will, Heckleston sniffed, nodded and stalked off to find something else needing his proprietorial critique.

Raggedy Jim did not rouse at Sally's first, gentle shake of his shoulder. Nor her second. But when she added a soft entreaty, his eyes flicked open like window blinds. They were shockingly blue, she couldn't help but notice. And his teeth, when he smiled, were white.

"Sir, the pub has closed," she said. She found herself smiling back at him. "You have to go home. Or, um. You have to go." This is the funniest line in the piece. It's totally believable, loaded with embarrassment and frustration, but it totally puts us in Sally's shoes. She's not granted the perfect dialogue of the love story.

He chuckled, a soft low noise, but showed no sign of abandoning his supine pose. But here's where I get confused. We've got a girl with a comedically posh name mucking out slops, because it's a comedy of status inversion. The fact that her dialogue is 'low' adds to the effect (and you confirm it later with "delightful flowery".) So why, when we're third person over her shoulder, do we have language like 'supine pose'? It makes it hard to be confident about the voice we're hearing from. The other answer is that the tone of the whole piece is 'high', but I don't think that's what you're trying to do... There was a clatter and a rumble from a back room as Heckleston embarked on a sweeping reorganisation of the broom cupboard. Heckleston goes from being a character device to a plot device. He's a beautiful time constraint on the action, and economically so.

"Piercing irony it is," the man mused, propping up his head with an elbow, "to be woken from heavenly dreams by one who might have been the angel within them." The way you make comedy and romance work together here is brilliant. Suddenly low-status Raggedy Jim has the 'highest' language of the scene (and wins the name "Mr. James" to boot). I wonder if you have made the contrast even starker between his appearance and speech?

Sally blushed again, rolled her eyes, kneeled down. "That's delightful flowery, Mr James, but I really need to get you out of here before Mr Judd comes back."

The man nodded thoughtfully. "I should... get up, then," he suggested.

Sally nodded. Raggedy Jim sighed, extended a leg for purchase and extracted his gangly but well-formed self from beneath the high table. Sally noticed that his clothes, which had given him his name in the village, were patched and worn but not particularly unclean.

He brushed a little dust off his coat and looked around absently, as though seeking his coach. In all things, Sally thought, he had the manner of a gentleman temporarily embarrassed rather than a gleaner on the outskirts of decent society; to which latter category - by every available account among the village - he firmly belonged.

Sally crossed to the door of the pub, pulled back the hasp of the lock and opened it wide. A frolicking zephyr of warm night air entered, then departed in search of more boisterous company. Raggedy Jim showed no sign of doing likewise, instead choosing that moment to yawn. Two brilliant sentences together. These summarise what this piece is about - inverted statuses, importance and (perceived) unimportance. He covered his mouth with an indolent hand.

Sally glanced at the door to the back room. No more sounds came from the broom cupboard but she had a sudden piercing being pierced is sudden, I reckon it does the job on its own premonition that he Mr Judd was about to reappear.

"Please, Mr James. Jim. Good. Just head on out and I'll see you tomorrow," she pleaded.

He considered her proposition and nodded, regally. Sally slumped in relief, then noted with alarm his upraised finger.

"But, sweet lady, I must first demand a gift, a boon," he proclaimed. "A kiss. One single kiss, a solitary osculation."

Sally raised her eyebrow, considered. I feel as though there is more tension you could wring out here, some way to stretch out this moment… Maybe she hears Heckleston approach? Then she held out her hand, which Raggedy Jim took with the grace of a dandy. He brushed it with his lips, winked, and sailed out into the perfumed night like a ship of the line newly christened at Portsmouth. This bit is comic, but it took me time to work out why. The overelaborate simile feels like a parody of romance writers (no bad thing, I always loved Garth Marenghi). Are you trying to show how romantic she suddenly feels? Good job.

Behind her Heckleston slammed open the back door and began another expostulation, the intent and content of which seemed, suddenly, oddly irrelevant. Sally Anne hung upon the door, staring out at the night, smiling. Perfect end, gives us just enough to know what to think.

I've gone on too long, but only because I love it. Love it like a blaggard loves gin. Well done!

twinkle cave
Dec 20, 2012

THUNDERBRAWL LOSER

Beezle Bug posted:

First to fire, let's do it.

Drag me Down -- 919 words, no flash rule.

I got my start playing piano at the Downtown Revue (good setup). Even after the wells dried up and the drunks staggered off to their hidden oases we did good business, and it was all thanks to Maggie. To say Maggie had energy would be an insult-- She crackled, sparked, she made all your men's hair stand on end with a glance. if she so much as looked at you (I'm not crazy about the way the first part of this is phrased. pure style choice though.). One look, just one look and it was just you and her, alone in the world.(That is a power. Reminds me of Sarah Palin effect upon her henchmen:) )


Most of the time I kept to myself. I ain't never been a real friendly guy, but Maggie wasn't about to let that slide. She didn't take kindly to people feeling left out and she would drag you kicking and screaming into the heart of a party (cool lady). I never much liked being the center of attention, but when it was me and her with everyone looking at her, looking at me, wondering what the Hell it was she saw in me? I loved it. I lived for it. (that's good)

I guess it didn't take long for her to get knocked up but truth is, I have no real way of knowing. My memories of Maggie are a whirlwind blur that slows to a crawl (come up with something all westerny metaphor here... "a whirlwind that turn into puff of smoke" or something better) when things get real painful(i don't think that last part is needed... we see that later). Figures that only the poo poo that hurts would stand out but it kills me every drat time (this is a true insight... certain people only remember bad things, and the good stuff just gets lost in the wash... idk if that universal, but seems common). I wish I could BETTER(cause he does remember some) remember those nights on the pier, how her face glowed orange when she took a drag and faded into the shadows when she passed her smoke back to me, I wish I could remember that (as clear as the tears....)the same way I remember the tears pouring down her face when she told me she was having my kid.

It wasn't that we weren't happy--poo poo, at least I know I was(good turn). It's just her on a dancer's paycheck and me getting pennies on the playbill didn't exactly take too well to raising a kid. Times being what they were I guess I should have seen it coming but the day she told me her plan her words dropped like lead in my gut. The cops wouldn't play no mind to a little lady, she said, especially not a pregnant one, and she had some real good connections from before Amendment 18 spit in America's eye. Not too many folks take kindly to the law telling them how to run their lives and her friends sure as poo poo were no exception.

Looking back, I should have gone with her. I made plenty of excuses not to. It ain't like I didn't have the cojones to go toe-to-toe with anyone who wanted to hurt her, I just didn't wanna see her that way (good). I didn't wanna see what she had to do to survive. Maybe I'm was just a coward at heart. but I did whatever I could so I didn't have to face up to it. Maggie said she wanted me at home, anyway, and even though I wanted to question that I didn't. (this whole part needs to be tightened..."She didn't want me to go, and maybe I didn't want to either, but now I wish I had.) I wish I had. She was always stronger than me and everyone could see it. poo poo, on the level? I wouldn't have been no help anyway (not bad).

I still don't know the details. What I do know is that the fuzz (does "fuzz" scan w/r/t epistemologicaly... did the word exist then?) didn't hold back none. poo poo, I don't even know if they knew she was a part of it but when the bullets start spraying and people start to panic you never know who might get hurt. I was told she took a while to die.

(new paragraph, that last line ends on a nice hard note that way) She spat blood and my name at anyone who got too close. It was hours before anyone told me. Maybe there was more important poo poo to deal with but I can't help but feel like I was being punished for not being there(sometimes the "bad sentence" country boy way of talking is a little overpowering.. like in this sentence. might be more effective to spread and thin it out or make it a little richer). Let her die, let my kid die, but don't let me say goodbye. Ain't that some poo poo.

Since then I guess I ain't been doing much. Her friends, the ones who survived, still got connections and they still let me use 'em. It ain't charity--everyone loved Maggie, not me. She was the only one who gave a poo poo about me, the real me(this seems a little wrong "the real me"... i get the point but it feels a little too navel-gazey over self aware of a statement for this character... "the real me" seems like a squishy nasty late 20th century phrase used to douche), not the guy who tickles the ivories(good phrase) until they sing or the guy who's there, quiet but handy, who will do whatever he can to earn the scratch for another drink. The guy who I am now. poo poo, if I tried to play now they'd throw me out in seconds. I got no talent anymore. I got nothing. All I can do is drink myself to death with every clink of my coins in their coffers(sentence is a little confused... more like.."All I can do is drink myself to death, adding coins to their coffers a click at a time." though who the "their" is seems a little odd, like he has animosity towards and unamed they where-as he hasn't shown that side before. maybe make it more specific). They'll be draining me dry until my dying breath and I can only hope that gets squeezed out sooner than later ("draining me dry" and "dying breath" are fine, but are also great places for more original language. a lot of good western poo poo is made enjoyable by the patter of oddball phrases).

I wanna look forward to seeing her again. Seeing my kid, if he's in Heaven. See, he wasn't even five months into her womb when they died and in my nightmares he's just this twitching bloody lump of flesh clinging to my trousers, screaming wordless, never letting go, never letting me let go until I've suffered enough. Maybe God wouldn't let that into His kingdom but the devil sure as poo poo would, not my kid himself but my dreams are a taste of Hell and I know what's waiting for me. Ain't no succor left in this life or the next. (it isn't really clear to me why he would go to hell.. he seems like a run of the mill decent guy for his time... maybe make it where he says "I'm already in hell" or something)

poo poo, all this talking's made me thirsty as sin. You got any change, pal? I'll make it worth your while. I ain't got no dignity left. Maybe I never had none to begin with.


Good complex characters. That part I really like. I think something more plotty on how she died is called for. And juicing up the language a bit. His "dummy" droning doesn't quite sell. His resolution to drink himself to death is less interesting than maybe some other choices, but as character piece it makes sense.

Beezle Bug
Jun 5, 2009

I love painting trees.
Thanks, that's a great critique. Fuzz refers to police and I looked it up, it's period-accurate, still might have been a better word choice there. I wasn't intending him to be a Westerny kind of guy, more like someone relatively smart who didn't really run in the kind of circles you pick up good grammar in, but the presentation of the character should def be tightened up so things like that don't get confused. The Hell thing was more like his self loathing--he may not be the kind of guy who earns a fate like that but he thinks he deserves to. Again, another thing I should have been more clear on.

twinkle cave
Dec 20, 2012

THUNDERBRAWL LOSER

Beezle Bug posted:

I wasn't intending him to be a Westerny kind of guy,....

Should've picked up on that from 18th amendment. Bad reader.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Grat crits and I think I agree with all of them. Thanks! I'll get to yours soon, just need to get some work stuff done.

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW
New theme song for TD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfZDQG-rxyQ

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Zack_Gochuck
Jan 4, 2007

Stupid Wrestling People
Thanks for the critique, Noah! I agree with most of your points. The insignificant thing that the character deals with was supposed to be deciding what to wear, but it was tacked on. I was never great at following prompts once I get going. I'll have to work on clearing up some of the redundancies, fill in some of the blanks, and fix the pronoun confusion.

The entire joke behind the piece was supposed to be the idea that Bernard is a horrible monster and everyone in this "world" is too retarded to realize it, in the same way that everyone in the Twilight "world" is too retarded to realize that Edward is a vampire, but I'll have to work on bringing out the humour behind that a little more. I tried to make the piece romantic at first, I really did, but this genre is just too ridiculous. I just couldn't do it.

Here's yours:

Noah posted:

Man, cranking out 4 things this week was kind of exhausting.

A Rare Find

words: 997

Darryl walked along the beach, just out of reach of the small lapping waves. In one hand, his metal detector, in the other his lucky skipping stone. He had rubbed a smooth divot into the stone over the years, always in time of the beeps coming from his instrument. Waves crashed minor, but "waves crashed" by itself sticks out to me for some reason. but Darryl couldn’t hear them through the headphones. Empty, lonely beeps. A white breasted, hook billed bird dropped in front of him. He pulled his headphones to around his neck and stared at the albatross.

The bird squawked at Darryl.

“What is it little guy?”

The bird turned and waddled down the beach. Periodically, the bird would turnThis sort of thing adds wordiness. Try turned instead of "would turn." and squawk again. Darryl followed calmly, the bird waiting until he was close enough before continuing on.

Finally Darryl caught up with the bird, where he saw it feverishly digging again, same as above. The difference here is you are making Darryl the subject and it should be the bird. into the sand. Every so often a wave would wash again, washed instead of would wash. I'm only pointing all these out because there are quite a few. over the hole, erasing the progress the bird had made. It danced around, trying new angles in vain.

Shooing the bird out of the way with his foot, Darryl jammed his trowel into the sand. Scoop after scoop, Darryl cleared out a large hole as the bird became more incensed.

“Hold your horses,” Darryl said. Feeling something sold, Darryl bent down. It was longer than his hand, but he could grab it, like a handle. Pulling it up from the sand, he put it in the water of a coming wave and washed it off. this sentence has "it" five times. I feel like the sentence could be trimmed or broken up. In his hand was a root, a tuber of sorts, but deformed. Appendages seemed to sprout from the main body, twisted and gnarled, ending in odd strands. Tiny green sprigs of grass acted like hair at one end, with two grotesque appearing legs at another end.

In both cases, I think appeared just adds unnecessary words. The beginning of this paragraph really bothers me. I feel like you could have jumped to something like "'Hold your horses,' Darryl bent down. He grabbed something solid." the "Darryl said" feels really unnecessary.



Darryl barely noticed the albatross screaming and flapping around him. Tiny openings near the top of the root spread apart. Deep pits where two eyes and a mouth stretched open briefly, causing Darryl to gasp. Again, I feel like there is some excess wordiness here. Why causing? Why not just "Darryl gasped?" Suddenly, the water bird lunged, slamming its hooked bill into Darryl’s hand.

Blood shot up from the wound,This is a bit awkward. and Darryl dropped the root. The bird snatched up the thing in its mouth and took off. “Ow, you son of a bitch,” Darryl said. Again, I feel like we'd know who's talking here from the context. Before he even realized it, his good hand was in his pocket grabbing his smooth skipping stone. It sailed like a tiny discus through the air. A sharp crack came from the bird as it nose dived into the sand. I feel like you could do these last three sentences, in like, one sentence. We know he has the rock, he can just throw it and hit the bird.

Darryl winced as he came upon the bird. Its neck dangled limply in the shallow waves, clearly broken. Bending down, Darryl pried open the dead bird’s beak and pulled the macabre tuber out. He stared at it briefly, before tucking it into his jacket and collecting his metal detector. Things like "Bending down" and "Clearly broken" you don't need these. Your average reader is going to figure out what's going on from the context.

At home, he stared at the root intently. It didn’t appear to move anymore. Scared, Darryl took a picture and posted it online, hoping for some identification. You probably don't need the internet stuff at all because it really doesn't go anywhere.

Realizing his mistake, Darryl grabbed a small pail and trowel and ran down to the beach. He filled his pail full of wet sand and ran back to the cottage. As he climbed the cinderblock steps to the deck, he saw another large, white bird perched on a deck railing. Darryl shook his bucket at the bird, feeling guilty under the beady, black eyed gaze of the bird.

It seems like there's a big jump here. This is from Darryl's perspective, so I feel like we should see his logic.

Piling the wet sand onto the tuber, which he had placed in a bucket, he hoped for the best. Checking his post online, he still had no replies. Countless Googling led him no further.

Darryl started digging through the sand again, wanting to see the root. His wet fingers wrapped around it, and he felt a small pulsation. Like a throat swallowing a small sip of water. It seemed bigger, and he was positive the root’s appendages had changed position.
I feel like we don't need this paragraph. It's really excessively wordy and I think the jolt of the root suddenly moving works.

Suddenly, the root shuddered, and yawned. Its tiny openings were like spiracles gasping for breath. Darryl panicked, burying the thing. Sitting back at his computer, he hoped someone would have answers for him.

As of this paragraph you're starting to get into too many simile territory. It's starting to feel forced.

“fake.”
“This is clearly shopped.”
“Fagit, i hope yu die.”

Like I said earlier. I don't think you need the internet stuff.

Darryl turned the computer off. Screams and bleats echoed through the air. Looking out his window he saw swarms of seabirds scattered around his yard and deck. This is the sort of thing I was talking about earlier. Here you are making Darryl the subject because he saw the birds. He's the one doing the action now, when the real action should be the birds attacking the house. They were watching from trees and telephone poles. Screaming. Darryl ran downstairs.

Sand had been pushed up from the sides of the bucket, scattered along the floor. In the bucket, the root lay, cradled in a pit of sand. Eyeholes, deep, black and endless peered at Darryl. Its mouth shiny with moisture.

The thing swelled. Bloated and wet, breathing like a wounded animal. He could hear the birds outside, a cacophony of caws and squawks.Here is that subject thing again. Bigger, and bigger, it grew with each labored breath. Birds began to slam against the windows, and Darryl could hear more and more birds joining the fray. Again here.

The thing began to shudder, and breathing grew louder. Its twisted limbs squirming like worms that had been cut in half. Choking sounds came from the thing. Wet, gurgling choking sounds. Purple goop spilled out from the side of its mouth, and it hacked. Gulls and birds crashed through the upstairs window, and Darryl could hear them scraping around, but could only watch.

With a final hack, a puddle of purple goop shot up and out of the thing, and it stopped. Slowly, it began to deflate, and wither. Within seconds it looked like a popped balloon, merely a rumpled skin lying in a puddle of goop and sand.
And the birds, they were silent. Darryl looked out the window and watched the last of them fly away. He turned back to the husk and watched it dry into something similar to snakeskin before disintegrating into the air. Again, Darryl sort of becomes the subject when it should be the root. Darryl stood motionless. One last flapping bird upstairs made a racket before making its way out the broken window. Darryl scratched his head and listened to the distant waves crash on the beach, and looked over at his metal detector.

I hope that was helpful. I think you could do a lot of cutting, but there were two things you did quite a bit that generally weaken your writing.

The first is the misplaced subjects. Here is an example, you say, "Darryl could hear more and more birds joining the fray." You're making Darryl the subject and the birds the object because he is hearing the birds. Darryl is the one performing the action. The birds should be the subject and the object should be the fray. It should read something like, "More and more birds joined the fray."

Watch things that make your story excessively wordy like "It began to deflate." Just say "It deflated." Putting that "Began" in here and there also makes your story excessively wordy.

I really like the general idea. I think that digging through the sand and the metal detector is a great motif, and I think you can explore that more. I think that this is a great idea, and a great framework, but now that it's outside the confines of this weeks prompt, you can expand. What is the root monster? Why is it there?

In terms of the prompt, I'm not sure what the insignificant thing is here, because I would poo poo my pants if anything in this story happened to me.