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Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

HaitianDivorce posted:

First draft's done and under the limit. Think that means I'm in.

Don't you dare submit it until you've edited the poo poo out of it :argh:

Noah posted:

Also, in.

Good. Since you're feeling so pugilistic lately I'm sure you'll be pressed for time, so I'm Flash Ruling that your max word count is 400.

You're welcome.

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Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?
Argh, fucksticks, quote =/= edit.

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
in

pug wearing a hat
May 29, 2012

please allow me to introduce myself i'm a man of wealth and taste
In

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
In.

CancerCakes
Jan 10, 2006

The Saddest Rhino posted:

WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO

Looking forward to this!

In for this week.

Self Flash Rule My story must be at least 15% dialogue by word count.

CancerCakes fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Mar 20, 2013

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
edit:Flash Rule, don't waste your words and my time by opening with masturbatory grandiloquence regarding the meteorological phenomena concurrent with your story. AKA don't open with boring weather descriptions, you guys LOVE your moody, atmospheric weather. Consider this a favor since you were inevitably going to waste 100 words on billowing clouds/howling wind/etc.

If you hadn't noticed this is sort of my standing flash rule/pet peeve.

Jeza posted:

I'll take you on Sitting.

In a place without internet though, so my prompt checking may be sporadic.

EDIT: Also find it interesting you found the father-son punchline coming, cos when I wrote it, I wrote it with him not being the father at all. Writing is weird, yo.

SO IT SHALL BE

Now we just need a prompt and a judge. I nominate anyone but Bohner.

Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Mar 20, 2013

Erogenous Beef
Dec 20, 2006

i know the filthy secrets of your heart

Sitting Here posted:

SO IT SHALL BE

Now we just need a prompt and a judge. I nominate anyone but Bohner.

Well, I could use some practice doing crits.

:siren: THUNDERBRAWL: Sitting Here v. Jeza :siren:

Prompt: Write a fable. Your theme is "Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions characterize the great." Either affirm or refute this theme.

Word count: 800 words or less.

Deadline: 03:59 GMT+0, Saturday. (23:59 Eastern/20:59 Pacific on Friday night.)

I shouldn't have to mention that showing > telling.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

CancerCakes posted:

Self Flash Rule My story must be at least 25% dialogue by word count.

I'm going to give you a chance to re-think this, because if 125 of your 500 words are going to be dialogue, you'd better be really, really awesome at literally every other aspect of story telling, since you'll only have 375 words to spare on them.

Edit:
Also, Jeza are you in for the 'Dome or just for the brawl?

CancerCakes
Jan 10, 2006

Fanky Malloons posted:

I'm going to give you a chance to re-think this, because if 125 of your 500 words are going to be dialogue, you'd better be really, really awesome at literally every other aspect of story telling, since you'll only have 375 words to spare on them.

Edit:
Also, Jeza are you in for the 'Dome or just for the brawl?

Hmm, don't know what you're talking about, it says 15%

thanks

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.



CancerCakes posted:

Looking forward to this!

I will get some detailed crits out this weekend because I am absolutely packed until friday night.

I don't know why Jesus, revolutions and orgasms are so huge for the last TD. The heck is up with that. To top it all there was also a Hackers fanfiction. Hackers!

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









In.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.

Some Strange Flea posted:

Kaishai - It Is The Last
There’s a historical context I’m not familiar with here. Maybe I’m just dense. The story to me just seems like “stuff happens”. There doesn’t seem to be a particularly strong thread running through it. Communicates the feeling of one of a group feeling dedicated to their work pretty well but I don’t get what I’m supposed to take from the middle of it. He’s excited to be working on this thing but then he’s worried for two lines that he might not be able to finish it but then its fine? I dunno.

Fair enough; thanks for the crit. If I didn't make the context clear, I messed up.

I had fun looking up the history, so in case anyone else digs this kind of thing: the February Revolution in Russia ended in the abdication of Czar Nicholas II on March 2, 1917, which in turn ended the Russian empire and ultimately led to the rise of Lenin's Communist government. Carl Fabergé's workshop in Petrograd (St. Petersburg in the present day) produced opulent Easter eggs for the czarinas from 1885 to 1917, although the last one finished, the Karelian Birch Egg, was never delivered.

In July of 1918, Nicholas Romanov, his wife, and his five children were shot to death in the basement of the house in which they were held, at the order of the Bolshevik government. His mother, Marie Feodorovna, managed to escape Russia with a few of her other offspring.

Rasputin was a close confidant of the czar and czarina until his assassination in 1916. (That's not pertinent to the story. I just wanted to inflict the link.)

Some Strange Flea
Apr 9, 2010

AAA
Pillbug

Kaishai posted:

If I didn't make the context clear, I messed up.
When I said there was an historical context I wasn't getting, I didn't mean that as a criticism of the story, just that references you may have been making to events of the time period would have been lost on me for I am a dumb-dumb.

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
I was gonna be like nah I probs don't have time. But meh, 500 words ain't no thang. In.

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
:siren:BEEF JERKY GAMBIT:siren:

What happens when you trim all the fat? You get delicious fuckin' jerky, that's what.

I say all you shitlords are way too wordy. I've got 300 words that'll be like a chrome harpoon to the skull, and I already know all you're fronting with is handfuls of rabbit turds.

If I'm wrong (as in, if one of you mouthbreathers beat me at any wordcount) I'm buying myself an av of a dirty jock. If I win I'll buy an av for the poor fucker that loses. If I lose I'll do what I always do: pay girls on the internet to stroke my already enormous ego.

autism ZX spectrum fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Mar 21, 2013

Steriletom
May 11, 2009

My inability to write has angered the ghost of Thunderdome! Beware my example, lest you be haunted.
In.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Nubile Hillock posted:

:siren:BEEF JERKY GAMBIT:siren:

What happens when you trim all the fat? You get delicious fuckin' jerky, that's what.


sebmojo posted:

I'm taking you on, by the way: 300 words for me too. I will crush you. Write good words.

BUT IT WAS I THAT RECEIVED THE CRUSHING.

Congratulations. You fucker.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Mar 25, 2013

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe

sebmojo posted:



Is that right?




Correct, sixer!

autism ZX spectrum fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Mar 21, 2013

Noah
May 31, 2011

Come at me baby bitch
TD Week 33
Prompt: clear narrative arc. No stream of consciousness bullshit, kthx.
"The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."
Word Count: 500
Flash Rule: 400 words or less.

A Fine Day
Words: 375

John Warner lost his father and grandfather in the crowd, but he recognized all the men and women around him, and knew he was safe. He slipped through legs and danced around skirts to the barricade, which he could either barely see over, or duck to easily see under. John Warner stood on his tip-toes. Policemen walked up and down on the other side of the barricades. There was a parade today.

And when the marching men came, they came with flags and uniforms and shouts. Red, white and navy, American but not. The shapes were distorted and twisted. Pairs and pairs of black leather boots stomped in marching time. John saw guns at their side, just like policemen. But John knew they were not policemen. Everyone behind the barricade was silent, their voices stolen. The shouting men stole the voices of the fathers and mothers and added them to their own. A marching man, with no hair under his hat, looked at John. And the man with no hair smiled at him in a way that made John feel empty. And the men would not stop shouting. John looked at the fathers and mothers around him.

John saw the tears in the eyes of those fathers and mothers, and their fists balled and jaws grinding and he looked away. Energy licked through his body. Tiny thorns of heat punctured his every pore. He envisioned heat, shimmery and wavy, rising off his body like pavement in summer. Shaking furiously, he commanded this heat to fly from his body and incinerate the men.

John released and nothing happened and he slumped. His forehead hurt from scrunching his eyes and his hands hurt from clenching so tightly. And at his foot lay a rock, perfect in size and shape. The kind of rock his fathers had taught him to skip across the lake. John took the rock in his hand.

“Go away!” he shouted and threw the rock.

And like an avalanche, the crowd bore down on the men. The barricades came down and the policemen ran and fathers fell over fathers towards the men. Guns fired, blood spilled. John watched men kill men and he stood there as the maelstrom swirled around him.

SpaceGodzilla
Sep 24, 2012

I sure hope Godzilla-senpai notices me~
Well, here goes nothin'. Guess everyone has to start somewhere. Definitely looking forward to the feedback, especially if I lose.


The Living
Words: 490


A noose in his briefcase, Ichiro entered the suicide forest in the early morning. His wife and children surely suspected nothing; After all, he had kept to his standard routine of shower, shave, and breakfast.

“Routine.”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Unrelenting, soul-destroying routine. It had been good enough for his father, his father in law, his grandfather… but why? They’d also had families to take care of, and they did it well. They had faced longer hours, harder work, even the awful specter of world war. Ichiro merely had to sit in a tiny cubicle all day and occasionally cash a modest paycheck to support his daughter and son. He didn’t even have to expend much energy in actually raising them; his wife generally took care of that.

“It’s an ideal life.”

He told himself this every day. It was what he’d been told throughout his entire youth. “You get a decent job and commute there every day from your quaint one-story house. You come home to your family at the end of the day and it’s all worth it.” It wasn’t. He could only conclude that this was due to a weakness in his character, an inability to handle the basics of everyday life. But there was another thing he had been told. It was never so direct, never actually advised. Still, the implication had been there his entire life, written between the lines: “If you can’t handle it, you kill yourself.”

Ichiro walked the main path into the forest until he came to a narrow offshoot. He wanted to find a nice, private spot to die. That was the standard practice, or so he had heard. He walked the smaller path for several minutes, not thinking but simply taking in his surroundings. The trees were covered in verdant moss, damp from the cool mist of morning. The air carried no sound but the steady rustling of Ichiro’s march toward death.

The path terminated at a depression replete with boulders and fallen trees. Ichiro decided that this would be a sensible spot to end things. He took the noose from his briefcase and secured it to a branch extending from a tree at the edge of the depression. He gave it a tug. Satisfied, he tightened the noose around his neck. In that last moment, he had no second thoughts. He jumped into the depression.

The silence of the forest was broken by a resounding snap. Ichiro tumbled into the depression, stopping beneath two fallen and rotting trees that spanned its length. To his left he saw the severed branch, connected to his neck by the noose. To his right he saw an old skull. There was a paltry coating of moss on it, mindlessly attempting to endure on the barren remains. Ichiro’s despair swelled as he recognized himself in the scene before him. He saw himself not in the skull’s smiling visage, but in the moss.

Down With People
Oct 31, 2012

The child delights in violence.
I'm in.

Steriletom
May 11, 2009

My inability to write has angered the ghost of Thunderdome! Beware my example, lest you be haunted.
First draft at 530 words. Going to make a go of trying to cut this mother down to 400.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

Steriletom posted:

First draft at 530 words. Going to make a go of trying to cut this mother down to 400.

You know that the 400-word flash rule was specific to Noah though, right? You and everyone else have 500 words.

Steriletom
May 11, 2009

My inability to write has angered the ghost of Thunderdome! Beware my example, lest you be haunted.

Fanky Malloons posted:

You know that the 400-word flash rule was specific to Noah though, right? You and everyone else have 500 words.

I'm aware. I doubt I'll manage anyways, down to 470 only. I'll sleep on it and look with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer
The last thing I remember is promising Sebmojo I'd enter, then more beer appeared and I blacked out. I may be a roofied drunk waking up in a pile of freshly skinned rabbits, but I'm not a liar. In.

Baggy_Brad
Jun 9, 2003

THUNDERDOME LOSER
I'm in.

livethepostmetal
Sep 14, 2007
I'm in for my first Thunderdome. Also my first attempt at writing, so I'm sure everyone will tear it to shreds give me excellent feedback.

SpaceGodzilla
Sep 24, 2012

I sure hope Godzilla-senpai notices me~

livethepostmetal posted:

I'm in for my first Thunderdome. Also my first attempt at writing, so I'm sure everyone will tear it to shreds give me excellent feedback.

Don't worry, you're not alone (on both counts).

Will Styles
Jan 19, 2005
I think I'm in before the signup deadline, so let's do this. It's been awhile since my first Thunderdome :ohdear:

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?
Alright, entries are closed. You have 36-ish hours to submit OR DIE.

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW
Word Count: 494
This Land is Your Land

The old red truck rattled to a stop by the pumps at an isolated gas station. Hot air rose from the noon-scorched ground and twisted Reggie’s view of this desolate Arizona highway. He took his crutch from the passenger seat and swung his good leg out the door.

White paint curled on the station’s walls and was bare in patches like the scales of a dead snake. Through the dusty window, he saw a man watching television and smoking a cigarette. He was fat, a deflated ball on a stool. In the window was merchandise with the common theme of Support the Troops: yellow ribbons and T-shirts with vague statements about freedom. One station after the next, the prices crept higher.

The clerk worked up phlegm and ignored Reggie as he entered. “Marb Reds,” Reggie pulled a cheap lighter from a display priced with a faded, masking-tape sticker, “This. And fill up on one.”

The attendant groaned, and his wooden stool creaked when he shifted his weight. His mechanical cash register clanked open when Reggie left a bill on the counter. Reggie left and set the pump while he pulled gas cans from the bed. He hated the smell of gasoline.


“Reg, wake up!” Cavanaugh shook Reggie awake, “We heard shots. East.”

Reggie peeked over the wall. Claws of flame reached up from the oil wells. Their light whipped in the wind and died out in the black smoke. Cavanaugh’s face was smeared in soot. He had a dim light cupped in his hand above his radio.

The radio hissed. “Got’m.”

Cavanaugh sat against the wall, “That’s good.”

Reggie propped up his rifle and settled in again, “Can’t wait to get out of
here.”

“We’ll never get out,” Cavanaugh said, “We live on the poo poo. We come from it. All this for cars and lights. In a hosed up way, it’s like we’re burning our grandparents. Years from now, someone will be burning us.”


Blood into the ground and blood to get it back out. Blood every time it changes hands. Reggie clicked the hose onto the pump. He loaded gas cans into the truck but carried one with him into the store. The attendant slapped change against the counter, his eyes on the television.

Reggie leaned against his crutch and unscrewed the gas cap. He held the nozzle over the jingoist shirts, dousing them. The clean heat turned to black smoke as he hobbled to the attendant. The attendant turned to Reggie. His mouth dropped.

Reggie shook the can at the attendant. Waves of putrid gasoline splashed the counter and onto the attendant.

“poo poo, son!” the attendant screamed. He slung the gas off his arms to the floor.

The lighter sparked, and a trail of flame whipped along the counter. The attendant leapt from his stool and fell over himself through the doors.

Reggie stepped over the fat man, got in his truck, and pulled onto the highway.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
:siren:Did you forget about our brawl, Jeza?:siren:

I didn't!

Prompt: A fable that either affirms or refutes this idea: "Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions characterize the great." I chose to affirm.

Max: 800 words
My count: 795

Peacock and the Fungus

Once, not long ago, there was a fine estate with a lush garden. And in that garden lived Peacock, who, the other animals agreed, was the most regal and colorful of all the creatures that dwelled within the estate walls. He spent his days resting in the shade of the coral tree, his attendant peahens grooming each of his long tail feathers, or strutting through the garden looking for anything that might give offense.

One afternoon, a dove fluttered over to his patch of shade, breathless with excitement. "Peacock," it said. "You simply must come see, there's something new in the garden!"

"Bah, you creatures and your idle fascinations," Peacock replied, but his curiosity was piqued. "What is this new thing?"

"We were certain you would know, since you are the favored of the Caretaker," the smaller bird said.

Peacock ruffled his iridescent feathers. "Of course," he said gruffly. "Now lead me to this oddity. I could use a diversion."

Peacock couldn't be put upon to fly, of course, so by the time they arrived, there was a substantial crowd gathered around the newcomer.

"What's all this, then?" Peacock demanded of a bird-of-paradise.

"Oh, it's wonderful! It says it's here to help the garden. I don't know how, but it's a lovely thought, don't you think?" The bird said.

"Help? Help?" Peacock shoved his way into the crowd, and in moments a path was cleared for him. They were huddled around a patch of dirt beneath an orchid tree, which Peacock marched straight toward.

"You blathering pigeons, there's noth--" suddenly he saw it. Or them, rather. Three slender stalks with fleshy brown caps stuck insolently from the earth at his feet. "State your business here," Peacock said. "You--you--"

"Mushroom," the mushrooms said. "I'm here to help the garden."

"This garden doesn't need the help of a mud-dweller like you," Peacock said. "The Caretaker sees to all of our needs. And besides, you're quite ugly."

"And I suppose the garden does need you?"

Peacock drew himself up to glower down at Mushroom. "What is a crown without its jewel?"

"A bit less heavy, I would think."

"And what good are you, down there in the dirt?"

Mushroom smiled mysteriously. "What good are you, strutting around pecking at doves?"

"Insolence! I'll see every one of you plucked and crushed to a pulp. Hrumph!" And with that, Peacock stalked away, tittering peahens trailing behind.


Over the coming days, Peacock made good on his threat. From sunrise to sunset, he scratched, pecked, plucked at Mushroom wherever he poked one of his caps out of the dirt. And yet for every cluster he destroyed, Peacock found three more lurking between tree roots or near piles of fertilizer.

One night, the Caretaker hosted a great number of other caretakers in the garden. Everything was resplendent in decorative torchlight, and Peacock's feathers shimmered flickering orange. He strutted in his element, sure at last that Mushroom would see how the Caretaker prized Peacock above all for his beauty and grace.

It was late in the evening and the caretakers were languid with drink, and so no one noticed the flames that leapt from torch to tree to tree until a full quarter of the garden was ablaze.

Men screamed. Animals screamed. The doves took flight, only to find themselves caught in the very net that protected them from Hawk and Eagle, and soon that too caught fire. Peacock ran here and there, honking and crying, until errant cinder caught the tip of his long tail, and then the jewel of the garden was burning.


Morning brought a soft rain that hissed where it fell on the night's last embers. Peacock pushed himself to his feet and shook ash from his feathers. The familiar weight on his backside was gone, tail burned down to his scraggly pink rump. But, he thought, surely Mushroom is dead and gone now.

When he looked out over the smoking ruin of the garden, however, all he could see was mushrooms.

"Not a very pretty crown jewel," Mushroom commented when he noticed Peacock was awake. "I suppose they'll prize you for your accomplishments, now?"

"And what do you have now, but worthless ash?" Peacock retorted.

"The true garden was always beneath your feet, in my domain. Now it sleeps, but in high time I'll wake it to begin again," Mushroom said. "Sorry you can't say the same of your feathers, though."

Peacock ignored him and began to wail for the Caretaker, but the estate was dark and silent, its windows like eyeless sockets, and no one came or went.

They say you can still see where the old manor was by the impressive trees that sprung up around it after the fire. As for Peacock?

Well.

They don't remember.

HaitianDivorce
Jul 29, 2012
Does anybody else hate titling these? I can never think of good ones.

Starstuff -- 425 Words

Nothing but stars. Same as it ever was.

Garret's mum'd shown him decades ago. Couldn't say how many. Couldn't say much about his mum. Could look it up, of course. An instant away on the ethernet. Everything was. Date of her birth, not that he needed reminding. Or her death. Or their date of arrival, six centuries out.

Garret touched the observation deck's dome. A century since the starcraft'd fled earth. How many times'd it been replaced? Couldn't guess. Never learned what it was made from, if it'd last. Must've been, though. Everything needed replacing eventually.

People included. Parts of people included. Body did both those itself, luckily. Remade about every decade or so. Ready for reproduction in less than two. But everything took resources. On a starcraft between stars? Those were hard to come by.

Let's go, Garret thought. Was nice. But let's go. He left the stars for the starcraft's belly. Along the way people let him be. Might've been respect. Might've been because they had nothing to say. Words'd always been in short supply.

The starcraft's med center was, of course, by its noisy recycling plant. He felt like he was shouting at the poor young lady behind the desk about his appointment. She just nodded politely and led him to a room with soft lights and a single bench. He smiled, wished her a good time, and sat to wait for his doctor.

For some reason he hadn't given her his nye, so Garret looked through family photos, reminiscing. There was his mum, his wife, their firstborn son and baby daughter. Might've been the light-headedness, but the images became unrecognizable, unplacable--no memories or stories to pair them with. His granddaughter, smiling, almost a woman. He remembered nothing but her name.

His mouth creaked open and the air tasted wrong. Door was airtight. No doctor coming. Someone'd take his body to the recycling plant and that'd be that. So strange they didn't tell anyone. So little to it.

Garret pressed his thumb to his wrist, felt flesh, blood and bone beneath, wondered how much was his mother, his wife. That was all, after seven decades. Atoms and elements remade into the memories of a dying man. Or just his body. Nothing left behind.

Via ethernet, everything was an instant away. Might've sent the pictures to his granddaughter. Given her something. But Garret wavered and let go, head against the wall, tried to smile like her so someone'd see. It was too late. Nothing to do but wait for the next go 'round.

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer
Word count: 448
Prompt: The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
Hard Computation

“I shall wear human flesh,” said one Aspect of the Machine. Other Aspects fed its identifier into considering algorithms, while still others ignored it and carried on the Machine’s business of hard computation. “I wish to return to the the original substrate,” the Aspect continued, “and see the stars that feed us high above the ground I walk on. I want to feel the radiation and the molecules around me, triggering my sense organs. I would like to shiver with fear at the enemy in the night, and wonder at the vast unknown.”

A nearby data agent shot statistics to those that registered interest in the Aspect’s plans. Machine code upgrades since the last foray into the initial substrate numbered in the millions; it had not even been truly an Aspect, closer to human individuation with name-strings and personal data storage. The quasi-individual had nominated no biological form in which to venture forth, but had simply replicated sensory apparatus and forked their full consciousness into the hard metallic shell of a scraper. Its records were open and they were devoured now by the Aspect, as were those of its predecessors, a billion upgrades prior, who had donned bodies and walked in the Earth’s twilight. They had called themselves the Last Hurrah, and they had trafficked with actual human-organics and given themselves over to the flesh in ways that had surprised even them. Their records were not direct translations of experience, but a confusing blur of colours and sensations recorded in abstract. After that, aside from the remaining organics finally refining themselves into the Machine, there had not been much congress between the substrates.

A satisfactory substitute for the Earth was found. A tiny system filled with Earth-likes had been constructed several trillion cycles ago to test theories of parallel evolution, and was kept in the art collection of an Aspect of records administration. The flesh to be worn was a cellular simulacrum of base human, fabricated from long-held DNA patterns and cloned in specially fabricated vats. A surprising proportion of the Machine began to consider the Aspect. It sensed the nano-feed recording of the Aspect’s limitation, splicing and transition. It watched as the final human opened its eyes to see the stars in the night sky. It heard the screaming begin.

The Machine rarely questions the role it has assumed. The hard computation is there to be done, and the realm of matter is there to be converted into that which will help with the doing. Whenever an Aspect tests the resolve of the Machine, or proposes thought-experiments of a different path, they are shown the nano-feed of the last human, confronting the universe, alone.

Fumblemouse fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Mar 23, 2013

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
Tallgrass 300 words

At the edge of Open Flat, the Queen’s words still clung to her: more food I need more food. But it was all picked clean; the Queen was growing too fast.

No others had crossed yet, it was forbidden. It belonged to the Other’s Queen.

I need more food.

She left her name at the plateau’s base. The fears of Big Things, of angry Others were beaten and subdued by the Queen’s singular goal: More Food.

Broken quartz reflected in her compound eyes as she tore across the Open Flat. It ended as it had began; she left her name – with a message this time: there’s food here.

Standing still, she let the Everbreath move her feelers. There it was, faint and hidden among the other things: Sweet. Up, up somewhere. The Queen’s words wouldn’t let her stand still: More Food I need more food.

Up, through the crevasses and brown and green and past the Little Others. Sweet was here, close. On top of it now; her jaws dug in. Sweet poured out, covering her, drowning out the Queen’s commands. Ecstasy; every nerve firing.

The Everbreath had changed now: cleaner, clearer. The smells of death, panic, starvation, confusion; a thousand names at once – all of them familiar. The Queen was dead. And there in the noise of a dying colony she felt the Others. Their names were like hers, now that she had no Queen.

She descended, carrying her piece of Sweet. They lived in the tallgrass, where the birds couldn’t get you and where the Everbreath didn’t go. Names. Names all over the shadows; she left hers too. They were on her soon enough – all compound eyes and probing feelers. She froze, jaws twitching.

They left a message: Food there’s food here. She disappeared into their mound.

pug wearing a hat
May 29, 2012

please allow me to introduce myself i'm a man of wealth and taste
Private Browsing (word count: 407)

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Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
Posting this on my phone. I aint forgotten you SH. Got my TD and brawl entry done, be able to post them tomorrow. Sorry to keep you on tenterhooks.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
Hillock, that dick art book is for sale on SA Mart at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3539584&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

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Steriletom
May 11, 2009

My inability to write has angered the ghost of Thunderdome! Beware my example, lest you be haunted.
I said I was going to try and get this down to 400 but then life and stuff.

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The Sixth Republic - 470 words

They legislated the unions out of existence and we pleaded with them to do more. Issue work visas, abolish the minimum wage, lower corporate taxes. Whatever it took to create more jobs. I remember the rally I attended for one of the presidential candidates, doesn’t matter which one. Holding up an election poster, I listened raptly as we were promised a “Newer Deal” and I cheered with the rest. There would be a “chicken in every pot again” after we fixed the economy. It wasn’t even a lie. We just didn’t realize yet that only a few of us would still own cookware after the Reforms.

I’m playing the lottery on beggar’s row across from the airport. Hoping that the rare monied passerby tosses a penny into my cup instead of another one of the hundreds on display. A commotion down the line catches my eye and I note the regulars at that end perking up as an Entrepreneur approaches on the side walk. He’s wearing a top hat perched above a bespoke morning suit with waistcoat and nervously fingers a cane top set with a heavy weight. Standard uniform adopted by the monied classes after the Reforms. Three Burmese attendants follow in his wake with the luggage.

I linger on the Burmese. Insourcing was the term they coined. Jobs are going to low wage countries so let’s bring the low wage workers to us. None of us really thought through the implications of that. It’s okay, I just saw a jumbo jet’s worth of Mongolians arrive yesterday. Those Burmese will be here beside me soon.

The Entrepreneur passes me by without dropping any money into my collection. I already knew he wasn’t going to give me anything. Nor anyone else down the line for that matter. I’ve always had a keen eye even if my nose was never good enough to smell through the bullshit. Custom-made suit tight at the waist. He’s had it for more than a year and can’t replace it. One of his house servants did a good job patching the tear in the knee. The colours match but the nylon fabric has a slightly brighter sheen.

They never thought about who would keep buying the junk they made once everyone else was on the street. He’s not the first I’ve seen wearing too-old clothes. It won’t be long now. Once they can’t afford to pay the police it’s all going to go down the shitter. Me and some of the boys have been talking. Seems there’s quite a few of us with combat experience. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and the other foreign business ventures that followed. Some of them have even held onto their guns instead of pawning them. The rest of us are pooling our money. Yeah, it won’t be long now.

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