Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









le reve du moyen francais est de posseder un petit maison, peut etre avec un jardin

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Sep 13, 2013

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Just being clear here

I went up on the roof and smoked a doob-
it's true, it makes your vision blur.

is fine but

I love you truly
be mine, Julie

is not, right?

Try me.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Etherwind posted:

Symptomless Coma, I'm calling you out!

One story, one time, one thousand words maximum. You can pick the prompt, because I'm loving hard, and sebmojo can judge if he is willing. Winner gets the haiku prompt, loser takes the other's prompt.

Do you accept?

Yep, I'll judge that. Flash rule: I have to care about one of the characters by the end.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Jan 10, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









STONE OF MADNESS posted:

Etherwind, Symptomless C, I've read 'em both and crits will follow ere the 12th :crossarms:

I have made my decision, but will wait for Madness' crit to render it.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









I'll judge the muffin/budgie inspector verse brawl. Prepare for stabbing, and tendrils. Do not gently caress up.

Prompt: loss, redemption, milkshakes.

Words: max 350

Due: Sat 2400 NZ time (look it up).

More generally: We're getting a bunch of brawls up in here, which is awesome, but could be confusing. If anyone wants to be Master of Brawls and keep a list updated itt, then loving DO IT.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jan 11, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:siren:THUNDERBRAWL JUDGMENT:siren:

Etherwind vs Symptomless Coma

Stone of Madness has done a nice job of critting these two so I'll keep it brief.

For me it was a straightforward result; one contestant nailed the prompt, wrote clear witty prose about an elegantly indeterminate crisis that their protagonist had to resolve and made me care about how they did it. The other told an involved but unconvincing tale with characters I didn't give a poo poo about.

Symptomless Coma wins by KO.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Bad Seafood posted:

Eh, yours is better than mine anyway. More thorough with links and codes and everything.

Martello, whenever you've got a moment not defending our freedoms, link Toanoradian's post in the second OP under its own heading. I think we can all agree a good Thunderbrawl's neither past nor present, but always.

I actually like bad seafood's formatting better. Plus, awesome .gif.

This being the dome, you may fight it out.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Bad Seafood posted:

Doesn't have to be poetry just because this week is. Thunderbrawl operates on its own terms.

Make the challenge, seafood.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Jan 11, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Bad Seafood posted:

Then we'll keep it short.



One round. One hundred words. Prose, your prompt.

And Sebmojo will judge because apparently he does that now.

Noted. Deadline 2400 est, Jan 11, 18 hours from now.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:siren:Thunderbrawl Judgin':siren:

Time to squat over the ceremonial Thunderdome Judge kazi and unload a few dozen pounds of impacted wisdom.

Bad Seafood vs toanoradian

100 words, "rotten food"

toanoradian: being human

Reading toa's stories sometimes make me feel like I'm watching a Javanese redub of a long-running Uzbek soap opera, with glitchy english subtitles. Which is loving awesome.

I liked the greasy physicality of this piece, the nausea of it. It doesn't try to set a scene or tell a story or demonstrate character, and is all the better for it. Just some dudes and their delicious maggoty cheese. Strong work.

That said, you don't get much room for error in 100 words. I couldn't parse the physicality of dropping a cheese, falling backwards and having your hand land on the cheese you just dropped. So knocked back a notch for that.

Bad Seafood: weeding

Though it doesn't have the visceral punch of toa's piece, this one is tight. Steps up, lays out its cards, sits back down. And it's a beautiful bit of craft for it. I think you could have cut the final 'still', but otherwise the writing in this is exactingly good. Strong work.

Judgment

They're essentially neck and neck, but I'm going to dock toanoradian a bisected maggotsworth of a point for the falling over thing. So the narrowest of victories to Bad Seafood.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:siren:Thunderbrawl Judgin':siren:

Surreptitious Muffin: no use crying vs budgieinspector:Regarding the Second Girl in the Second Verse of "Five Years" (Round 1)

Ok, so this was hard as balls. I liked both these.

Surreptitious Muffin

I think this is a revision away from being awesome. It keeps a lot of balls in the air - heat, cold, rock, mountains, spilt milk, weather, the sky, regret - and can't help but drop a couple, which takes some of the impact away.

For instance the first para, below kicks rear end - simple and sinewy.

“the single worst year of my life,
I slaved under Genghis Khan or some
distant relative in a coalmine
outside Ulaanbaatar. In summer
we burnt and in winter we froze,”


Then you introduce the context and the other organishing set of weathery metaphors

he said, finishing his drink. The straw
played typhoon melodies in the foam;
all grey-brown bruises and spilt milk.


which doesn't play as well as it should with the story being told by our guy. Bringing in spilt milk/regret/the title feels like shoehorning in attention that should be being devoted to our sad Uzbek.

“something in me got froze so bad -
the sun melted it before I even saw
her hot smile; something so small
I never even knew what it was. 400
days and 400 nights I walked the desert
trying to fill a hole that wasn't there.”


Wouldn't be so bad, but I think the turnaround:

Perhaps years passed before his granite
hands made a mountain of matters.


Is cute-witty rather than good witty. You've invoked a mythic quality that doesn't fit with the quotidian nature of sittin' round and milkshakin'.

If you'd managed to nail the turnaround, I think this final para would land its hit better:

then ordered another milkshake and made
a tempest of the drinking. I could see the
colour rising, the bruises fade. The sky
outside was quiet and dour
though inside I touched the heart of a storm.


budgieinspector

This is a v prosey poem, to the point where it would just about work as a short story. The wry Douglas Adams via John Osborne style is deployed consistently and with a diamond-sharp eye for detail that makes me think of Roger Gough.

The subject matter is well-trodden enough that it could be painful in less skilled hands. But lines like 'face painted peach and lifelike', 'desolated flocks of dowdy sparrows waddled in their housecoats and rain bonnets' and 'the bruises she could easily conceal' are killer. And the ending is way more delightful than it should be.

Judgment

I hesitated over this call because I do like both the poems and wondered if I was giving too much credit to Mr Inspector for being accessible, but I think I'm not. This round of the brawl goes to budgieinspector.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Jan 13, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









budgieinspector posted:

?

IDENTITY THEFT!

FUUUUCK.

I think I had the 'Coma on my mind because I still owe him a crit. Sorry budgieinspector.

And yeah, it's getting cluttered. New thread excitement, should die down a bit soon.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jan 13, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

:argh: I'll get you next time, Gadget. (it's best of three, isn't it?)

Indeed.

BUDGIEINSPECTOR vs Surreptitious Muffin Thunderbrawl: Round 2: Shakespearean love sonnet (14 lines) .

Modern language, no thees or thous.

Due 2400 Monday NZ time.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









supermikhail posted:

So, yeah, what's worse: to submit the 140 words that I have, or not submit at all? I know it's not that EST yet, but I've got another riddle on that time, and I don't know which one of these two makes me more constipated. (I bet the motherfucking poetry.)

What's worse is to keep posting like this.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Symptomless Coma posted:


On Thunderbrawls: My tuppence is that they only really 'work' if they're special, and that's only if you get the sense that the thread is watching. If they're not, we might as well play email chess. Same goes for a sub-thread, I don't think everyone would check it. Sure, it's good to find more excuses to write, but this thread can only provide so many at a time. My vote would be one brawl allowed per week, one round maximum, in this thread.

This has a good ring to it. I also like the idea that anyone can leap forward to judge, unless the contestants want someone specific. Judging is fun.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









6 hours to go. Get crankin', versifiers.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









toanoradian posted:

Oh, crud. Requesting permission to add my flash rule to my submission.

DENIED.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Bad Seafood posted:

2 hours remain.

Mojoman, shoot me your email in case Benagain disappears for another thousand years.

BONUS HAIKU

sleep is a tunnel
a shortcut we take through the
ever-dreaming earth

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jan 14, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:siren:Muffin/BudgieBrawl: Round 2:siren:

Prompt: English love sonnet

budgieinspector: Wasabigasm

This a well-textured piece that uses the form to its strength, with the rhyming back and forth as a ramp up to the final couplet. The mock serious description (KAMPAI!) and rich colour play real nice together, especially given the sensual payoff. Plus - sexy without being at all explicit, which is a nice trick.

I have no significant crits to make of this - meter is excellent (though I spotted you a grave accent on 'dredged', it's worth putting those in when you need them for the meter) The final couplet, with its faint, rueful lament, is pinpoint precise.

Surreptitious Muffin: on the rooftop we found new names for old stars

This played a little over-clever with the sonnet form - sometimes it's ok to be straightforward. Some of the enjambment messes with the rhythm (the internal rhyme of 'enough' and 'love', specifically), and though you pull it off, I would have been interested in how you managed a more vanilla approach to the sonnet form.

That said, I kinda like the way it unfolds on close attention, with the involuted thoughts of the narrator echoing his situation.

However! Last couplet! Does not rhyme! That is the point of English sonnets!!! I am pretty sure you could have rescued the poem with a better final couplet, but you did not.

HENCE.

:siren:Final Judgment:siren:

Budgieinspector wins the second round and the Brawl.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jan 14, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

It's an eye rhyme with the f and b couplets to give the thing a sense of gentle rounding off and a continuation of cycles. :argh:


(I hate heroic couplets; they feel really cheesy)

but I probably had that coming. Hail budgieinspector. I doff my hat you.

CLEVERCLOGS. The challenge is to take that and make it not cheesy.

Good fight. Holy poo poo after this that's it from me for judging for a while.

I SHALL WRITE WORDS NOT RIGHT THEM FOR A TIME

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Jan 14, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:siren:THUNDERDOME XXIII JUDGMENT:siren:

Prompt: Poetry, death (but not morbid), flash rules assigned by Stan the Gibbering Mouther

Jesus, cleanup on aisle poetry some useless bunch of fumbleclucks just shat all over it. Seriously it is like four feet deep there are bits of corn beavers sharp-toothed watch escapements, and I don't know what else.

That said, despite the blizzard of insane flash rules it gave me grim pleasure to see combatants just cranking out whatever it was in them to crank. This is thunderdome, not a trade school. Only a fool thinks they have nothing left to learn.

Breaking surface of the bubbling shitpool this week were Sitting Here, twinkle cave, Surreptitious Muffin and budgieinspector. They wrote with grace and fire. Let them be recognised.

Of these, twinkle cave is victor, beating budgieinspector by a hair. His piece was morbid as gently caress but he didn't care. He now squats atop the slick pole that leads to the judgethrones. He is grinning like a fox eating poo poo off a wire brush.

Swimming far far below in the foetid roiling darkness is this week's loser, Your Sledgehammer clutching to his soiled bosom a piece of stupefying triteness.

The first rule of the Thunderdome, Your Sledgehammer? That first rule is write good words.

Benagain and Bad Seafood will be along soon to expand on why you are all terrible.

Judges for next week are twinkle cave, budgieinspector and Surreptitious Muffin, plus a secret judge who will make their presence known.

Fight well.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Noah posted:

Can we do away with this clusterfuck of flash rules? Thunderdome thread seems really bloated, with a ton of noise and not a lot of signal. I think streamlining would help out the thread significantly.

Yeah, I can't speak for the next judges, but I expect daisy-chained flash rules were a one and done.
But it seems to me bloat came from 1) flash rules 2) thunderbrawls 3) random discussion about stresses and poo poo 4) defensiveness 5) new thread eagers 6) crits 7) thank yous and defensiveness for those crits

Flash rules and brawls are okay in moderation (one round only, no three rounders), crits are great, random chat and thank you's/defensiveness are bullshit.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









in

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Etherwind posted:

Suggestion: after this prompt, all deadlines come in the form of EST so it stops being a thing that constantly causes discussion (and sometimes confusion). I'm in the UK, and I'd take EST just to have a consistent time zone; better than having to check what gasoline-huffing, lead-in-the-water part of our gay earth we're giving a gently caress about this week.

Nope.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









toanoradian posted:

So by NZDT you mean this, yeah?

NZ only has one time zone so you can't really get it wrong.

I just google 'current est' or whatever then make a mental note of what time that is for me.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









CancerCakes posted:

I found it very hard to invoke a sense of place and unease. Instead I produced a boring story about two guys going to a pub and kinky insertions. Whoops.

Ditch this. Slap down your words and laugh in the face of any who'd gainsay them.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









I smell a challenge aborning.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME

My freeware wordprocessor (JARTE) just seized on me and I didn't have the file saved.

that's a fail, but I'll retype it and get it in after the deadline anyway.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Jan 20, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









The Saddest Rhino posted:

REDTEXTREDTEXTREDTEXT

Holy jesus, Rhino, how do you get people so mad

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









dome me

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









edit: took this one out as i submitted it and got accepted HURRAH

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Mar 20, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









^^^ added word count

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Done.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









quote:

I think at least one judge each week should man up and post crits for the stories posted.

I agree, but there's always at least one or two rounds of brief crits from judges (isn't there? Or did we miss one?), and there's nothing stopping contestants doing a Twinkle Cave and critting other 'domers. If you want more, fiction farm. Or win a round and you can set whatever crazy rules you like.

Incidentally I'll do a crit run on the poetry in round XXIII later today, as that's one I missed.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jan 29, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

I'm in even though I can't win. I just think you all should listen to me try to read while drunk.

In. I will destroy you all.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Contraband, 766 words/5 minutes

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Feb 3, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

It's a bit late for it but can we get the text for the stories posted as well? It's hard to follow some of the recordings without a transcript and especially hard to crit.

Yeah, was thinking that. Will put mine up in a mo.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









neonnoodle posted:

And so he did! sebmojo is the winner! You had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Your piece was conversationally written, well-acted and nicely paced.

It was a very close match, with strong showings also from swaziloo and CancerCakes . I was also intrigued by what Sitting Here had to offer.

supermikhail, I was going to declare you the loser of this week's match because I could barely understand a single word...but I thought it didn't seem too fair because English is obviously not your first language.

Then came Noah. He has no excuse whatsoever. It was like listening to Frank Zappa. I must admit that I was as entertained as I was baffled. Noah gets a special loser award for best worst.

Holy hell. Thanks neonnoodle.

After five wins my assgroove on the Thunderthrone is so precisely fitted to my specifications you can count the hairs.

I JUST WANT TO WRITE STORIES MAN STOP MAKING ME WIN ALL THE TIME

Unless neonnoodle wants to keep his place, I will exercise judgerogative and elevate STONE OF MADNESS and CancerCakes (sorry swaziloo) to the judge podium.

Prompt to come momentarily.


sebmojo fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Feb 4, 2013

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









toanoradian posted:

Oooh, the deadline's on Saturday. I thought it was on Sunday.


gently caress


Can I request a losertar? I have been a pathetic poo poo these past two weeks.

Five bucks, same as in town.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

Holy poo poo. That was a burn.

I'm also calling out me and Martello for not posting when we said we would. We suck.

Well yes you do.

Sounds like you two need to expunge the shame with a little brawl, since we didn't have one last week. It'll be just like that time on Martello's couch, except even more oily and brutal.

Winner gets to pick an avatar for the loser to buy themselves.

What do you say?

  • Locked thread