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The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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Seldom Posts posted:

Two Heroines
404 words

I would strongly suggest a competitor be thrown into the picture:

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The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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I understand I have been made judge and THEREFORE:

:siren: FLASH RULE APPLICABLE TO ALL :siren:

Do not give me worldbuilding poo poo as the entirety of your story; I'll make you want to live in a world without death.

THANKS GUYS :)

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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Someone had better write a story of a germ who can't die and make it work.

E: Someone write this too:

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jan 7, 2014

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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:siren: MORE FLASH RULES :siren:

If your story is gonna be "punchline (s)he's the grim reaper totes lol" you better not make it suck.

E: gender neutrality

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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magnificent7 posted:

Fine. FINE.

I challenge you to a brawl. 500 words of pure telling, NO showing.

I will judge because I'm feeling charitable / masochistic.

MAGNIFICIENT7 VS SEBMOJO THUNDERBRAWL 2014

Write 500 words of pure telling without showing. Your theme is: Magic Realism*. Extra favours with me if you are able to set your piece in a non traditional White People / English-speaking community.

* I do not care how you interpret that. Go figure it out.

If either of you drop out I'll make fun of you on the Internet.

You have until 11 January 2014 12 noon PST. Go.

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jan 8, 2014

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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UGH. I wake up to this poo poo? I'm the judge so I'll agree with Merc even though I have no idea what an "anime" genre is, much like everyone has no clue what the "magical realism" genre is.

MAGICAL REALISM + ANIME - "TELL DON'T SHOW" - FURTHER NEGOTIATION = YOUR BRAWL PROMPT

NOTE: I'm looking really closely to make sure you show not tell everything.

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jan 9, 2014

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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:siren: FLASH RULE :siren:

SHUT THE gently caress UP UNLESS YOU ARE SUBMITTING A STORY OR SIGNING UP

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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The Leper Colon V posted:

Hahaha, drat. There goes my entire story, then. Time to go at it with a butcher's knife.

What are we at, right now? How many submitted?

You know what, I'm getting grumpier as time goes by so you get a nice big flash rule, for not being able to read.

:siren: FLASH RULE (ONLY APPLICABLE TO LEPER COLON V) :siren:

A key plot of your story involves germs/bacteria/viruses not being able to die.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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I think I speak for a lot of people that this is disappointing of you, but ultimately, predictable.

The Saddest Rhino
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Quidnose: OK FINE. URGH.

magnificient7: I'm very glad you have posted a story so good on you. Even though you did not post an anime magic realism brawl story. Which I think is totally unkawaii of you and you are a big itadakimas sugoi desu oneechan. Let me know if you still want to enter for that.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Rhino and Carbon's crits aren't late: mine were just super early this week because Tuesday was a public holiday and I had some time to screw around.

Work turns out to be a little tougher this week which means my crits are late. And there are likely going to be very unfair ones too, especially if I hate your piece. I'm going to make an exception and allow you to PM me or hit me on IRC to bitch at me why I am The Wrongest Rhino. If you feel like I totally should read your story and crit, ok do the same too.

I was already reading a bunch and making comments before being assigned Stories #16-30. So some of you get some crits.

1 Chairchucker Death Where Is Thy… Oh What’s That Word, Bees Do It

This is a very Chairchucker piece. It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either. I chuckled at a few bits where they talk about how Lee made them suffer through 270 million years of trial and the sentence being 270 million push ups. I know this was written very quickly and briskly, like “a joke is at the tip of my tongue, I need to get it out now”. I wish you let it brew a little bit longer so the jokes are funnier.

2 Captain Trips Undying and Unemployed

The characterisation is all right. I was interested in the family conversation even though I suspected where it was going, especially because you have capitalised the sentence where he said he got fired. Your eyes tend to wander to that sort of thing unconsciously.

I don’t like the punchline. I wish you just made it that it was just about the guy losing his job as an undertaker, and the consequences after. Rendering him the grim reaper sounds like you forgot how to end it so “ok here joke now cool I is gud riter.” Plan better next time.

3 Meinberg Can't An Old Robot Probe the Mysteries of the Universe and His Own Creation In Peace?


This reeks a lot of pretension. I’m going to admit, I’m not a hard sci fi person. A story that begins with “The tumbling of cyphers begins to coalesce, numbers and sigils aligning into perfect four-dimensional arrays. I pull at the central block and the obstruction falls away.” is not really that attractive to me, it makes me think “is this guy playing some spaceship simulator MMO?”

I don’t really “get” the story. It feels like reading the office life of a guy in middle management dealing with a bunch of people being assholes to him, and him thinking about his retirement package. I want there to be more story or meaning behind the Ionia plotline and his retirement plotline, but it feels like a prequel of an actual story.

4 Mr_Wolf Who Needs God

You got the atmosphere down. You got the kids’ personalities down. You got their backstories down, you got the way their motives and desires affect their reaction to the death of the 45 year old down.

What you didn’t get down was the plot structure. in that on first read I have no idea what the story is. I’m still not entirely sure. As far as I know, here’s your sequence:

- Danny hits a truck
- Joe (leader) does misogynistic stuff, then hits truck
- Tommy appears with the news
- [Sudden complete change of direction of story to Tommy’s backstory]
- They go into bunker and talk about God

I’m interested in seeing what these kids are doing and what they are doing. I like some things you have done, like describing Tommy’s DIY tattoos, and Joe’s line on outliving Gods. Your backstory of Tommy, however, serves as a major distraction that sticks out like a sore thumb, throwing the pacing and plot to the backburner just so we can read about Tommy being Tommy. I reread it without the backstory and your entry became better.

5 Quidnose Sting like a 01100010

I feel that your first scene is superfluous with lots of sci-fi worldbuilding stuff thrown in to show us how nice and advanced, yet corrupt in the core the world is in the future. Really, I like reading about stuff like this, but they did not do much to the plot, and I think it could have been cut down a little. In fact, your first scene and the second scene could be easily combined together to create one coherent sequence. It would also give you enough wordcount to deal with the third scene better.

I like stuff like Ten mistaking his pang of hunger as guilt, because it is a great character moment. I don’t like the robot’s speech style, because I didn’t get what it was saying half the time (A close example of what you were going for I’ve seen is: “QUERY: WHAT IS THIS.” “STATEMENT: THIS IS A COCK.”).

Seriously, you are a solid writer so I was a little disappointed you got curtailed due to the format of flash fiction this week, especially as the world is interesting enough I want to read more.

6 JamieTheD Fascinating

I don’t understand “it’s the ah word”
I don’t understand why Marek has a shotgun on the dumbass earthling.
It reads a lot like Wall-E except without the charm. I think the only bit I like was when he picked up the dog.

7 The Leper Colon V Escape Attempt

cute idea re: necro virus not dying. Execution - vomit

8 Baudolino Joufyl Sypheus.

Too much stuff cramped into it, but it’s actually interesting and makes me keep reading? But what is the point of the story. Also, I played on youtube that song and it’s “what the poo poo is this”

Lots of technical errors. Still have punctuation issues, but a lot better since Rural Rentboy. You still can't get your names' spelling straight.

Jerimiah is such a silly name, btw.

9 God Over Djinn What we had never done before

I like this story. It works, especially when it's revealed at the end that Lack did not anticipate dying was a permanent thing.

High pile for me. In fact I was pushing this to win.

10 Guiness13 Forever

Not bad. But could have just thrown out the whole prompt of "alive for centuries" stuff and just put him in a coma where he's eternally awake. That would mean he's in his own world where death is not a release. Makes the piece stronger.

11 docbeard Old Man

Huge pacing issues. Lots of ellipses in the conversations, rendering dialogue unnatural. Sounds like anime.

A lot of extraneous stuff which did not need detail. I was bored most of the time. The whole first scene is fluff.

12 Mercedes To Beard or Not To Beard

What in the gently caress is going on

13 Seldom Posts We Conquered Death So That We Could Exult In Murder

Not enamoured with it. Idea of murderers being used as furnitures is a unique perspective but I just cannot picture that happening. Like, are they physically bedstands and dressers? I don't really get it.

The pacing had a sudden change when the poisoning occurred, as if you realised you had not enough words to use.

I wasn't altogether happy with the letter either.

Overall, could be much stronger.

16 Nikaer Drekin Vertigo Blues

You know what, I wanted this story to be cute. Young romance, star-crossed lovers, saying cute funny things to each other and be all marvelled about how in love they are, and when she falls he catches her and they're serious but they're still in love.

Well, it's not that, so I'm disappointed. The dialogue is just, well, clunky.

Especially with the exposition. Jesus, why.

Could use improvement.

17 Rainbow Unicorn Man to Machine

Pacing problems. Don't put an expositional thing in between each conversation. It's tiring.

Otherwise, the story is fine. There's a bit too much backstory on why death death death immortality here and there but I can deal with that. Charlie is interesting, but I feel like they could be doing something a bit more special than what seems like just skydiving.

The sense of location is also odd. I was a bit surprised they were so high up in the air, and the conversation doesn't really make logical sense other than for exposition purposes.

18 ThePopeOfFun It Is Really Only God Who Kills

I'm sorry but this is incredibly tiring to read. I'm sure I'm going to be called a philistine but I had to read so many entries this week and a story which is full of huge chunks of paragraphs, with so many happening happening happening at once and in such rapid succession, where I can't even tell at one point where the story is progressing to, I just can't appreciate it.

There is just too much going on and I don't get the reference to Herschel in the end.

19 petrol blue Business

Interesting concept, although somewhat predictable. I don't think you established enough of what the protagonist was there for, other than him being a homicide detective and this Toombs guy is really suspicious.

I think your ending suffered a little from wordcount issues. But otherwise, it's all right.

20 Sitting Here Spaceless Dementia

One of the first stories I read that didn't even bother dealing with "why aren't people dying"

So, I like it. I like it enough that I reread it. There's obvious thought being put into a spaceship's functions and how age would cause things to go out of control. I like the characterisation of Linne and Desera and how devastating Desera's catching of "hope" is considered a disease by Linne.

High pile.

21 DreadNite The Genesis

There is a line that says:

"Acutely aware that this interaction is being broadcast live around the world, I turn to her as steadfast and confident as my unsteady heart allowed and only manage to utter “I love you”."

This is not good writing. This is cramming lots of words into a sentence without care to sound smart and failing.

The beginning is the Hunger Games. When BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM I WANT YOU IN MY ROOM happens, I'm tired and bored and I don't even know what is going on, other than there being a lot, a lot of adjectives and words that don't mean anything.

It is the reader's, especially a judge's, fault to not continue on with the story. But the writer should not make it harder for the reader to do so.

22 Tyrannosaurus Thoughts on a Cold Winter's Day

"It could marvel at how unique it is. It could despair at its sameness. "

This is the best line of the story.

It's trying to be poignant. I think it got muddled up by way too many words, when simplicity would have made it more poetic and sad.

I didn't like the "oh well snow can't think, psyche" bit. It's too contrived. The revelation of the skull of the last man, same thing.

It's ok, I guess.

23 Erogenous Beef An Obvious Reference to Hamlet, or Maybe Nietzsche, Man

Jesus Christ the ending. It hurt so much.

It's silly and it doesn't make sense half the time, but this story made me smile the most, and I like a lot of stupid things like the names of everything and Zombie Saladin, and Stoner Jesus. I was questioning why the curries kill zombies off, then I get to the pun.

That pun.

It's worse than Immortali-tea.

High pile.

24 Kaishai Endless Night

Good story. There's a melancholy to the mood, punctuated by the morning glories around the bodies, which work well for me. The characters' actions make sense, their dialogue are intriguing, and the shock that comes during the calm made more surprising just because of how quiet the whole story had been.

It takes some finesse to not destroy the atmosphere of a story when something violent occurs in the calm.

High pile.

25 Djeser Man After Man

I enjoyed this - very fun story, of cavemans which keep regrowing their heads and limbs in all the wrong ways.

There are some bits that could be handled better, like how he could not feel fun anymore when the new head kept thinking about himself. It's a tough challenge you have set for yourself, so I can't blame you, but it definitely could use some fixing.

I wish it didn't end with the fang-cow attacking him (I would prefer he accidentally engineered his head's demise). But I like the ending you were going for.

High pile.

26 crabrock neverstop

Ok I know it's the sun.

I can deal with the lack of capitalisation, but the random absence of punctuation here and there? Shaking my head at you now. However, it's fine enough and kept my attention although I know you definitely wrote this in less than 20-30 minutes.

27 Schneider Heim To You, 50 Years From Now

I can see your writing improving as time goes on. I like the characterisation you gave the two where they argue over the child's gender. I don't like, however, some of the exposition stuff like Plavinsky's way too detailed explanation and the "human race blah blah blah" dialogue.

I like your last line. There are some clunkiness here and there. Your story was ok, but it definitely could be improved.

28 ReptileChillock Detritus

I can't really tell, ultimately, whether his brains were transplanted into the computer of the ship's navigational system and he was stuck there forever. It sounds like that's what you are doing.

Which makes the appearance of sentences about computers all that more confusing.

If that's the case, that bit where he hugs a girl, that emotional impact, would be good. It's a bit of a mess here and there though. Why didn't you use all the words?

29 Amused Frog The Artist

I think you should have focused more on the similarity between the attendant and the artist, that they are actually performing pretty much the same thing/role, except one has more prominence than the other because of marketing/whatever.

As of now, it's fine, but it can be improved. I enjoyed some bits here and there, but it feels a little dead without that emotional connection with the protagonist.

30 Entenzahn Sport of Kings

Ok, this is fun. There's a lot of wrong and hosed up things but I understand why you are doing them. Very over the top and ridiculous.

Could be greatly improved by actually reading like a sports article. Right now, I can't actually tell whether I'm supposed to be rooting fro Ghana, or America. There's also not enough mention of Goreball, which is surprising since it's the game.

You have too many run-on sentences.

32 Peel Closure

Dialogue works. A bit too much, but works. High pile.

33 Chair Bird Paradise

This was my push to lose.

Need to proofread. Lots and lots of proofreading. There are too many issues and my brains can't focus. Pacing doesn't work. Feels like writer has forgotten what he was trying to say at several points. Punctuation issues so numerous.

Very troubling implication in this story, when the large man appears and does this:

"He laughed in a good natured way, throwing his head back, his smile lighting up his face. He patted me on the back in an act of sympathy and said “Yes my friend, they get sick but they do not die, it happens to all of us, this is inevitable.”"

Because the first thing that jumps into my mind is the protagonist, who is passive and accept everything as ok, is totally cool with the idea of these friendly, happy wardens operating a rape camp full of immortal sex slaves.

You probably did not intend that but Death of the Author, etc.

34 QuoProQuid Death in Dorset

I like this. High pile. Very Mignola-ish and the last line is killer.

40 Bigup DJ The Supermen

Has a great first and last line which honestly I felt saved the story. There isn't really a story but rather conversation snippets. I feel this works better as a short one-pager comic (with each conversation a panel) than a story. If you want to go for the latter, at least describe scenes or things.

Dialogue sorta works. For experimental writing this is laudable. It doesn't mean it worked.

45 Martello XXX ORGY OF THE DEAD XXX

Understands my secret fetishes for Hammer Films movie monsters having copious amounts of sex with little subtlety. Push for win.

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Jan 15, 2014

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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Judgment of Anime Magic Realism Brawl (Mercedes X Mag7 X Meinsberg X Sebmojo):
Motherfuckers can’t even differentiate between a sugoi and a sempai



Mercedes: BRAWL ENTRY MOTHERFUCKERS! MAKE WAY!!!!!
Tenten Has a Mean Serve


I think based on my limited knowledge on anime, this reads really like that since she has amazing pancake-sized eyes, and then Mikel’s body exploded like a video game character from No More Heroes. It’s fun enough, although the anthropomorphic quality of the tennis racquet didn’t seem quite that magic realist, but I appreciated TenTen and Kana having a huge high five that blew everything up. Honestly though I think Kana should forget that little poo poo Jacques and be all 유♥웃 ℒℴνℯ ヾ(✿❛◡❛)ノ with Tenten so they can go ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐ on Kana and Jacques.

I think this is better than your beard entry in last week’s, btw.



Meinsberg: An End to Childish Things

You are the second closest to magic realism, with the speaking wind and the complaining fire, and his hair turning white, etc. It seems like it needs to resonate more with the character’s feelings (see sebmojo’s) to be a bit more.

These are really pretty words you are using, but it seems like the mood and tone doesn’t quite befit the purpose which is just what looks like a dude going (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ and burning his anime DVDs and t-shirts. Like, the scenario evokes hilarity (*☉౪ ⊙。)ノ but somehow you write really (๏̯๏) serious (๏̯๏) words like “the cold began to seep into his bones”.



Sebmojo: Magical Heroine Miyuki

So when we were on IRC you told us the only anime thing you have ever watched was Spirited Away, and I was a little worried because when goons stereotypically would just categorise anime as “lol japan tentacles porno”. I’m glad it did not turn out that way. It’s pretty challenging to make something as banal as what looks like a goofball anime (bombs, ninjas) have a magic realist theme. So although you went down to the typical high school anime thing* (“I can’t tell this cute boy my feelings! (︶ε︶メ)), you still manage to pull out something magical realist by having Jun turn up everytime all the crazy encounters occur, as if a mirror of Miyuki’s own conflicted (´•_•`) feelings about him. So, good job on that.

* I think it’s typical, right? I mean, even Archie does that.



Magnificient7: JJ 20140113_05234.txt

Well I know you did this piece as a snarky one-off. But I want to tell you it was good of you to step up to the challenge especially after I wrote the most mean-spirited post of 2014’s TD thread so far. To which I apologise.

I can tell you are all (´ᗣ`) and (╥﹏╥) and then v(ಥ ̯ ಥ)v about the whole anime thing, which honestly I don’t blame you because I don’t know much about it either. But I want to address the parts where you say stuff like this:

quote:

“my lovely loving writing”
“Probably because I don't ever loving write.”

Well gently caress you, dude. You have written a nano book, you are reading up techniques to write, you are writing stuff, and you argue with online Internet assholes on writing. So can that totally unkawaii attitude, stop having to make people taunt you or PM to persuade you to keep writing, you ought to (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡 and do what you want to do and try to improve.

So ok please be less tsunderay and more ヽ(〃^▽^〃)ノ.

Jesus.



VERDICT

Most Anime: Mercedes
Most Magic Realist: Sebmojo
Most Consumerist Culture: Meinsberg
Most Massive Baby: Magnificent7

Ultimate Winner: Sebmojo

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jan 17, 2014

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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sebmojo posted:

I will judge this.

:siren:QuiddestRhino Brawl:siren:

500 words on serenity in the midst of chaos.

Due in one week and one day, Monday midnight PST, you know the drill.

Early submission because tomorrow morning I'm gonna be bogged down by work.

---

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/brawls.php?story=127

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jul 1, 2014

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God Over Djinn posted:

However, I humbly request that you not deal with literal poo poo, you Freudian loving weirdos.

Tentatively in.

The Saddest Rhino
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God Over Djinn posted:

For you, fine. But only if you don't describe a civet making GBS threads coffee beans.

Fine General No-Fun it's not like I'm also judging this week too.

Also just to make judges' lives easier:

Ensure you include a link to the Internet Nerd Encyclopaedia article you are referring to in your submission.



- - -

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=1536&title=How+Louis+Was+Impressed%2C+but+Still+Won%92t+Learn+to+Listen

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jul 1, 2014

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tankadillo posted:

Breaking Habits

(Based on stories from Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks)

Oliver Sacks's Hallucinations posted:

When a friend and colleague of my parents’—Augusta Bonnard, a psychoanalyst—came to Los Angeles for a year’s sabbatical in 1964, it was natural that we should meet.

...

I had started taking LSD at this point, and if that was not available, I would take morning glory seeds instead (this was before morning glory seeds were treated with pesticides, as they are now, to prevent drug abuse). Sunday mornings were usually my drug time, and it must have been two or three months after meeting Augusta that I took a hefty dose of Heavenly Blue morning glory seeds. The seeds were jet black and of agate-like hardness, so I pulverized them with a pestle and mortar and then mixed them with vanilla ice cream. About twenty minutes after eating this, I felt intense nausea, but when it subsided, I found myself in a realm of paradisiacal stillness and beauty, a realm outside time, which was rudely broken into by a taxi grinding and backfiring its way up the steep trail to my house. An elderly woman got out of the taxi, and, galvanized into action, I ran towards her, shouting, “I know who you are—you are a replica of Augusta Bonnard. You look like her, you have her posture and movements, but you are not her. I am not deceived for a moment.” Augusta raised her hands to her temples and said, “Oy! This is worse than I realized.” She got back into the taxi, and took off without another word.

We had plenty to talk about the next time we met. I disagreed and maintained that my seeing her as a duplicate or impostor was neurological in origin, a disconnection between perception and feelings. The ability to identify (which was intact) had not been accompanied by the appropriate feeling of warmth and familiarity, and it was this contradiction which had led to the logical though absurd conclusion that she was a “duplicate.” (This syndrome, which can occur in schizophrenia, but also with dementia or delirium, is known as Capgras syndrome.) Augusta said that whichever view was correct, taking mind-altering drugs every weekend, alone, and in high doses, surely testified to some intense inner needs or conflicts, and that I should explore these with a therapist. (In retrospect, I am sure she was right, and I began seeing an analyst a year later.)


"Based on" is a pretty liberal way of saying you are lifting wholesale a story (even the character's name) from the book you're referring to, I'm assuming.

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Jan 27, 2014

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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

:siren: Space Filler Elegance Challenge #2 :siren:

Prompt: Tell me a story from your childhood.

“Let me regale you the story of the Hantu Buntut,” Iqbal told Natalie. “In Malaysia we have squat toilets, holes built into the ground. To do your business you must remove your pants and squat over it. A good Muslim boy would recite the Quran verses as he take a poo poo, so as to ward the filthy Hantu Buntut off.

“If he doesn't, when it comes time to clean himself - ah! What is this sensation? Is something helping him clean his unclean rectum? Ah, there are fingers poking and touching! Ah! How embarrassing! We will not talk about the Muslim boy who finds it pleasurable.

“So he jumps up, pants round his knees, and lo and behold! It is a pale hand poking out from the toilet! And its fingers are smeared with the poor Muslim boy’s poo poo!

“And then the hand becomes very long and snatches the boy by the butt, and pulls him into the toilet and he disappears forever.

“And that is the story of the rear end in a top hat Ghost.”

Natalie said, “What a lovely story, and so tasteful too.”

The Saddest Rhino
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

:siren: FILLER PROMPT :siren:

Interpret the phrase viking party ends in disaster. I don't care how.

250 words. No signups, submission lasts until the next prompt is up.

getiton

I don't know how this will turn up since I'm using a phone. I had a lot of Chang beer and Bangkok is not as crazy a warzone, don't have a computer, Didn't bother editing or counting words and I'm sure most of this don't make sense. But it's probably very Viking to write without giving a poo poo.







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God Over Djinn posted:

Thunderdome LXXVII: Well gee, that's certainly something

Thunderdome LXXVII Crit Summary

If you’ve been keeping up you’ll know I was delayed due to the Chinese New Year and a trip to Bangkok during elections protest season. Djinn and Beef had already done massive effort posts, so I’m not going to do major, intensive individual crits.

General

Clarity

If you have seen my line-by-line crits, or even just be in the irc channel when I’m judging, you’ll notice me pointing out “unclear” and “what is this story about EVEN” numerous times. Suffice to say that is my major issue when it comes to reading - the story needs to be clear, and I genuinely do not appreciate obtuseness in an effort to present yourself as writing cleverly.

“But Rhino, I have such wonderful and intriguing ideas (who are like my babies *), and I feel if I present them in a - ugh - conventional way, then whatever beauty inherent would surely float away like a wayward butterfly,” says you. And I say, “But your writing is unreadable and I do not understand your ideas, which look to me like maggots wriggling in a sour mangosteen.” Frustrate your reader, and your reader leaves you. Focus first on making your prose and storytelling clear before jumping into the ocean of attempting literary genius writing. Walk before you run.

* Do not treat your ideas as babies.

Key Offenders:
Mr_Wolf - Suffered from overwriting and confusing, with no clear plot. Clever lines did not hit and better served in a clearer story.
J.Comrade - It was unclear as to who the protagonist was and what was the conflict/tension.

Awareness

A key structural problem of flash fiction is length. A reader has only so many words you present to look through in order to make a judgment of you. Much like how in real life a person makes a first impression of you in the first 5-10 seconds meeting you, the flash fiction serves as a concise, tightly-vacuum-packed jumble of words for the reader to judge on your writing style, skill, storytelling habits, and ultimately, your worldview.

Without getting into Tumblr-SJW territory, be aware your story may paint a picture of you that you do not necessarily want to present, especially if you are presenting a viewpoint. Too often, readers will infer characters to act as “mouthpieces”, or plots to be essentially philosophical perspectives of the author. Granted, most nerd readers are loving troglodytes who read too much into text (see: tvtropes, Tumblr, SA Forums/Games/Let’s Play and SA Forums/TVT threads) and do not realise the author does not subscribe to the view of their characters/plots. But more often than not, those authors receiving the “criticism” are skilled enough that they can write that way. Try to get a person to proofread your story and tell you whether it has issues.

Key Offenders:
Phobia - I had to run back and forth to consider whether your story suggested homosexuals are into raping each other (nah), trivializes rape (potential, since the 3 speaking characters make light of the raping) or runs into sexual fetish territory (ugh, don’t want to think about it). Ultimately I just decided you were bad at approaching the subject of a gay bomb.

Writing Women Characters

I have had the misfortune to read some online guides on “how to write women well.” Some are insightful. Most are rubbish. The most telling one was a particular guide who gave me Alex Vance of Half-Life 2 as an example because “she is competent”.

Get into writing good characters first. If you can’t do that, why deal with “writing women well”, when your male character is also a paper cutout? (I think that’s my reasoning in writing the Viking party entry but eh)

Good characters have motivations, strengths, weaknesses and values which make readers sympathise with them. It’s notoriously difficult to write a character readers will care about within a few sentences, but it definitely can be done. The easiest way is usually to write an underdog, or to show a person passionate in their work, or just not be a massive rear end in a top hat like Dick Dorkins.

On strengths and weaknesses, I feel the need to point out that neither should be strictly physical. There’s a reason why I balked at Alex’s character being noted as “good” because “she’s competent” - as far as I could recall, she didn’t have much of a personality other than being a really amicable support AI who can shoot guns and reload weapons at her own programmed routine. Oftentimes people think “strong female characters” mean “she can punch a man and DOES NOT CARE”. I have also seen people ask “I need weaknesses for my character, should I just give her a disability ** ?”

YOU ARE NOT WRITING A FIGHTING VIDEO GAME OR AN MMA/WWE SCRIPT. YOU DO NOT NEED TO MAKE ALL STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES BASED ON HOW WELL THEY PUNCH PEOPLE OR HOW MUCH WEIGHT THEY CAN LIFT. Character, mental, psychological weaknesses are good tools to allow people to empathise with your character.

After you get that down, then figure out writing female characters.

Here’s your biggest tip: Just treat them like normal people.


** The example I have seen given is Nemo’s character in Finding Nemo, who has a smaller fin. But note that it was used to give him more personality and explain why he’s headstrong and want to go beyond his disability, and why his father wants to protect him. It has nothing to do with his character weakness.


Key Offenders:
Paladinius - The constant need to have the women tell each other they were women was close to insulting the reader’s intelligence.

Writing a Story

The least of all is I want a story. My personal preference is stories with some meaning that can be derived at the end, but I also enjoy the fun yarn of funny/terrible/awesome things happening and being satisfied jokes/schadenfreude/metal things get completed.

For reasons unknown to me, we have had submissions this week where the author writes around the story. When I read the story is about a subject matter, I don’t want to just read people talking about the subject matter, I want them to dive into it and deal with it, and come out either wiser or worse or learning absolutely nothing.

Key Offenders:
Paladinius - How are vampire numbers even significant in your story?
Tankadillo - They take drugs and talk, and then he has worse hallucinations, and?
No Longer Flaky - Why are they just talking about trepenation?

Specific Crits

High

crabrock - horrifying and effective. Some kinks here and there but nothing major. I got what you were going for with the “My baby died” line, but I think it would work stronger without it and just have a nice little show of her feeling her womb collapsing or something. That sounds painful though so uhrm. Ask a woman.

Tyrannosaurus - Personally I never saw why you keep getting hit with loser some weeks because I think you’re a competent writer but with some rather bizarre ideas when it comes to stories (see: piss guitar). I like the sisters’ characterisation and it was genuinely affecting at the end when they said HakunaMatata.

Guiness13 - I thought your story was nice, although it stretched on believability that a man can be this dumb. Your best line is the protagonist packing her bag and sitting beside it on the bed for hours. Your ending desperately needed something happening that wasn’t just “she left”.

Kaishai - There’s a dreamlike quality to your writing in this piece, and it feels very close to an entry on interesting people found in, at best, a Borges-influenced collection, or at worst, an Expedia.com top 10 list. Your issue lies in not giving the main character a story arc, which using would have assisted the story greatly.

Muffin - Your imageries are hilarious and I enjoyed reading this barbarian woman doing terrible things against literature. I think there should be more focus on Alice, and my personal preference is to have her as the main character because she has the stronger story arc. I hated your scene break by the way.

Fanky - Giving benefit for finishing within ½ hour. There are some editing issues, and your first half was a little weak in repeating a few times about the hum. It was saved by a fairly decent second half. I think you should consider giving this a rewrite completely and you’ll get a good story.

Medium

Jonked - Your story was competently-written, although a little predictable, but I did really enjoy your ending punchline. It feels like there could be a stronger story arising from this, with the person missing being just backstory/background instead.

elfdude - You suffered from overwriting in the beginning, so although clear in prose I found myself skipping words just to get to the point. You have some strong wit here and there which got muddled by the overwritten bits, so focus on that.

ReptileChillock - I laughed at some bits. But I didn’t laugh at most because I was just confused. I think you set out to write a joke entry in the hopes of a cult of gay cannibals named Martello would become the new thread meme.

Djeser - Competently-written, but there are just too many bitcoin references which, as someone who doesn’t even bother reading the gibbis threads, fly over my head. I got confused halfway and just left it until the next day to read. And I only finished it because I was judging.

Schneider Heim - Competent, but I’m not a fan of the subject matter. I can understand the wife’s timid nature, purely because I have watched Japanese television drama and have seen this kind of women before. But it’s just… can we just not have a woman draw toaster animes and then being merely sad her husband tried to grope a co-worker?

Noah - I didn’t really care about the characters, which is a shame because you actually infer the post-apocalyptic environment well without needing to emphasize how everything is devastated etc. The only part I like was when they ate the astronaut ice cream, but it’s because we don’t have that there and it was novel to me, especially how it was pretty bad.

Walamor - I feel you have zoomed in on the ending too much (which was darkly funnY) but fumbled a little on the focus of the story. There’s some confusion in tone as to whether it’s meant to be a drama or a comedy, and I think you should have stuck to the latter especially if you wanted to stick to the reality show angle.

Quidnose - Story is a little predictable in that a bomb appears, and then explodes, killing raiders from Fallout: New Vegas. I feel the main character’s weirdness was not well-exploited - why wasn’t it a factor when the bomb was discovered? (I know her hearing was obscured, but it’s just so unsatisfying)

Nikaer Drekin - I don’t particularly understand why the graveyard acts like a living person who can respond to very specific queries, rather than a pre-recorded statement? I do love the last few paragraphs though.

Meinberg - Good job on getting rid of some of your overwriting/pretension, but the story suffered from not being that interesting. She gets caught by MIB and they ask her stuff mentioned in the wikipedia. I think she should be hallucinating throughout the whole story honestly.

Low

Paladinus - I’ve mentioned your issues above. You have focused too much on the dilemma on writing a woman, and forgot that journalist interns usually research their interview subjects. Her being an unsympathetic rear end in a top hat did not endear me. I came out of it learning nothing about vampire numbers.

Baudolino - You had an interesting attempt in doing non-linear chronology but it absolutely did not work. It actually threw me off parts of stories which I thought were interesting and was disappointed that I had to read a boring snippet instead. If you had focused instead on one bit - perhaps the restaurant scene - then you would have a stronger story.

Mr_Wolf - I did not understand your story. I did not see how it related to your wikipedia entry. At one point, you did not understand either, since the ice cream cone held by the boyfriend become one held by the girlfriend. Your saving grace was that your story had some interesting imagery and was not bordering offensive.

Anathema Device - This feels like a Hallmark channel 2 minute backstory of a family, but overblown by how the boy had lots of piercing. It was ultimately boring. Do you really want to write boring stories?

tankadillo - The others refused to crit. I will, since I was the one who had a copy of Hallucinations and realised you have rewritten a short scene in the book with little changed. I ultimately could not see the significance of the story and how their taking/not taking drugs changed things, and when the boy said he hallucinated other things, the girl just went “ok.” You also have pacing issues. Sacks wrote that bit to show how drugs affected him and the interesting hallucination he had. Your rewriting did not achieve that.

No Longer Flaky - Ultimately this is a clinical story of a doctor telling a terrible mother about trepanation, and the little girl thinking “it sounds weird but ok I guess.” Where is the story? I hope everyone in this story gets trepanned.

poopkitty - I think you wanted to make a cool reveal of “the Japanese had kamikaze human torpedoes!” But it got marred by a lot of passages about techincal things and an uninteresting person’s career history, and also Japanese words for little reason. Incidentally I just read a book with the Sino-Japanese War as a backdrop, with main characters who are Japanese, and there was a lot less Japanese words in fifty pages than in your story.

WLOTM - You did not have enough description to suggest boy is in fact a monkey. Your protagonist was worthless to the plot (all she did was get slapped and then get hanged, for what seemed like a minor affront of telling a man “I think we need to treat people like people.”)

Enthenzahn - You had an interesting character, but your exploration of a man’s obsession destroying himself and those he loved was not sufficiently interesting enough for me to stay enthusiastic. Your story was ultimately predictable and I hated the ending.

Phobia - I don’t know why you chose the subject matter, unless you think it’s very funny to have the “both sides” and other sex joke being said by a bunch of horrible people of the military-industrial complex about a bomb that causes mass rape. I did not find it funny.

Jay O - You have used too many nerd references, and not only did it date your story, it did not endear me to your writing. I’m not interested in reading whether the protagonist has been playing Fart Simulator III or Massively Miserable Online RPG yesterday. It’s interesting to use the cat’s eyes but I did not feel it was effectively written to make me sympathise with the character.

J.Comrade - There is something very strange about your writing style that I can’t pinpoint. I don’t understand why the characters are even there and I think you may have to read the most typical advice spouted in the Fiction Advice Thread: Read More.

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Feb 4, 2014

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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No Longer Flaky posted:

Crit my work and I'll crit yours. Anyone who crits my stories will get a crit from me in return, that's my plan from now on.

I cirt your trepanation story, crit my viking tale lol

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Apr 29, 2009

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No Longer Flaky posted:

In general what is the point of having these characters be ghosts? They all acted as if they were regular people anyways, there was no point to have them be ghosts at least in my opinion

http://dbpedia.org/page/Munarv%C3%A1gr

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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

I gotta drop because I'm a big baby wah wah wah

Muffin is presumably boarding a plane in one hour's time to leave the worst town in Indonesia, so I'm taking his signup place, suck it fools.

---------------
http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=1666&title=--

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jul 1, 2014

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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

You've all seen at least one. If you haven't, watch this. So here's what I want: cliche coincidences, labyrinthian romance and most of all, ridiculous, ridiculous melodrama.

You may also refer to http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/passions/

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Fanky Malloons posted:

Beloved Dome participants,



Soap opera interprompt is actually already over but it's nice you two have entered with this collaborated effort! I like this story a lot :D

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Anathema Device posted:

I'm in. What's my flash rule?

Also I'm bored. I will crit three stories if anyone asks.

I would be grateful if you could crit my last story, but if you criticise my niece and call her an annoying child I will just nod slowly in mild disappointment.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

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Despite systran saying there ain't no flash rules, here's one:

:siren: DO NOT loving WORLDBUILD. DO NOT JUST THROW A BUNCH OF WIKIPEDIA FACTS AT US OR PRETEND YOU ARE WRITING THE BACK OF SOME GATHERING: THE MAGIC CARD. IF YOU DO EITHER YOU WILL AUTOMATICALLY LOSE :siren:

EDIT: whoever's not entering this week and wants to volunteer go into IRC or PM systran/me.

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Apr 29, 2009

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Not another flash rule but if any of you write boring stories I'll be very annoyed.

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Apr 29, 2009

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The Saddest Rhino
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Why are there so many stories on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk-yH1KeZqU

?

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Illegal Carrot posted:

Probably a lot of people wanted to avoid something super serious (especially after those first three crits got posted), and wanted to go for something a bit nicer than "man fights big scary monster."

Is this your reason for not writing a luchadore story

Because wow weaksauce

Everyone gets crits much later in the day when I slog through them with a clearer mind. I hated every single one of those brownie stories.

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Apr 29, 2009

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In

The Saddest Rhino
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I've finished the Crits for the previous week.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WCTuyNLYv2Z6WCiARBxwG6IefBCTUlW4CWM7i5VVrn4/edit?usp=sharing

At least one of you made me weep blood. Another one made me go "omg gently caress youuuuuuuu." And someone else had me go "Please let Kobe Bryant save our souls."

But none of you, save one, made me a liar, when I told people in another thread that you were putting in a conscious effort to improve your writing. Your story was the worst, you displayed zero effort in making your writing presentable. I was scandalised and ashamed, and I hope you die like Jamie Joaquin, Benny the Snake.

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http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=1799&title=In+Its+Wings+He+Shall+Find+Paradise

The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Jul 1, 2014

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Oxxidation posted:

"Special" Mention: Every Single Mother loving Benny the Snake Entry

None of them were funny, all of them were bad in their own special ways, and since they technically qualify as fanfic Beef and crabrock moved to have them DQ'd anyway.


As most badly-planned conspiracies go, this had a lofty goal - to ungrump the grumpy judges. Alas, as is the way of such things, they have the unintended completely opposite effects. Which is to say, most participants shall not be sorry, though they are likely breathing sighs of relief at not being made losers.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RiDsh-WZDtrdv80BKPxeL_nXoRte7hehh33W045Op2U/edit?usp=sharing

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Lead out in cuffs posted:

:ghost: Why was this one so much easier to write?

NOPE PUT IT ASIDE FOR A DAY AND THEN LOOK AT IT AGAIN AND REWRITE EVERYTHING ALL OVER

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Apr 29, 2009

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Ugh, CAVEAT TO FLASH RULE: Do NOT write Silent Hill fanfiction or try to be cute and make the Hantu Tetek a sexy nurse.

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elfdude posted:

Requesting a flash rule to help alleviate my writer's block.

FLASH RULE

Write a story inspired by this song:

quote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0-5rhmLwTo
So it’s cheer up my lads, let your hearts never fail,
While the bonny ship, the Diamond, goes a-fishing for the whale.

CAVEAT: It goes without saying but no fanfic of Pirates of the Caribbean, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, or any other popular pirate media.

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IN LIGHT of this incredible development, it has been convened, and it has been agreed, that for you, Benny the Snake - in order for your story to escape both disqualification and/or humiliation, the following :siren: FLASH RULES :siren: shall be applicable to you:

1. YOU MUST WRITE A NEW STORY other than the one attempted to be shown to, or has been shown to, Sebmojo and Fanky Malloons. We are fully aware we cannot control this, so let your own conscience be your guide.

2. YOUR STORY MUST PROMOTE THE FOLLOWING MATTERS AS GREAT VIRTUES:

(a) reading and listening to instructions carefully
(b) not being a liar.


We look forward to reading your story!

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Apr 29, 2009

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Critiques for Week LXXXIV: MOST OF YOU CAN'T TELL GHOST STORIES

I have done crits of all the stories (maybe save one), even elfdude who I threatened to not assist in writing anymore but gently caress you, I'm a massive softy so you can buck up and loving deal like a man taking a hot shower. I've put it up on googledocs like the last time I did anonymousweek:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HYKz1qKOao5syAcMdipEiwT0GcAFTPp7u6r365Br_v4/edit?usp=sharing

BECAUSE I AM PUNISHED BY READING ALL YOUR HORRID STORIES congrats! I have decided the lot of you deserve punishment too! Scattered throughout the comments are stuff with the term "GLOBALCRIT" which refers to almost every single one of you who makes errors that I keep harping on. I'm tired of having to continuously spell out these crits so you can trawl through all my angry comments and find out how hurt you are going to be by the end of the day (report to me your findings by the end of the day especially if I make you feel things).

There are also some comments which apply to all of you I didn't include that header, so happy hunting!

Seriously how is it we say "write a spooky ghost" and one of you managed to "write a penis being grabbed" is absolutely beyond me. I am So Over This DOT COM.

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Apr 29, 2009

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STOP APOLOGIZING AND JUST WRITE WELL

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