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docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

I must join the ranks of the dishonored dead. The spirit was willing, but the flesh decided to spend the day ill and exhausted.

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docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Heat bad Thunderdome good

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Half Alive
1,434 Words (1,496 in the original)

docbeard fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Dec 25, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

"And suddenly, he's a horse!"

It was not David's favorite illusion. Setting it up was hell, even if he managed to get hold of a cooperative horse, and he was still paying the carpet cleaning bill from the one time he tried performing it inside.

But the children seemed to like it. And that's what it was all about.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

I feel the need to stretch my critiquing muscles, so the first three people to ask get line-by-lines.

Returning the favor by critting someone else's story is encouraged, but not required.

Also, I'm in.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Obliterati posted:

I'd like one. I've put a lightly edited version of the week we've just done in the Farm which could really do with a line-by-line.

My thoughts are up in the Farm.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Permafrost
1435 words

docbeard fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Dec 25, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

PRRRROOOOOOOOOOOMPT

oh poo poo wait

:siren: THUNDERDOME XCVII: Neither Tarnished Nor Afraid :siren:

Raymond Chandler posted:

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

This week you are going to ruin one of my favorite quotes for me.

Let me rephrase that.

This week you are not repeat not going to ruin one of my favorite quotes for me.

I want stories about good people in a time or place or world that isn't kind to good people. Your protagonist need not be a saint, but there should be something tangible to admire about them. Likewise, your world need not be a nightmarish dystopia, but there must be something about your setting that makes it difficult to be that specific sort of admirable person. Make me believe that your protagonist is struggling for something, that the deck is stacked completely against them, and that what they're trying to achieve is worth achieving.

Within those constraints, any genre is fine; don't feel the need to write a noirish detective story just because it's a Raymond Chandler quote. (I mean, you can, but it's not necessary, and not necessarily encouraged.)

As per usual, no fanfic, no porn. Above all else, don't bore me. Make me give a drat.

Flash rules are available to the unwary.

Word Limit: 1,250 words
Signup Deadline: Friday, June 13, 11:00 PM CST
Submission Deadline: Sunday, June 15, 11:00 PM CST

Judges:
docbeard
Schneider Heim
Gau

Writers:
Kalyco
Broenheim :toxx:
WeLandedOnTheMoon!
Sam.
D.O.G.O.G.B.Y.N.
SurreptitiousMuffin
sebmojo :toxx:
Stereo
Nethilia
Grizzled Patriarch
Fuschia tude
Nikaer Drekin
BrilliantFool
V for Vegas
Tyrannosaurus
Cache Cab
CommissarMega
Jick Magger
Angrymantium
Entenzahn
God Over Djinn
Meeple
dmboogie
Fumblemouse
Kaishai

docbeard fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jun 14, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Also I still owe a couple people crits. These will happen soon.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

IN.

Can I write fiction about a character I've used elsewhere?

I'll allow it.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Speaking of crits, here is my promised crit of Thalamas's recent brawl piece.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

:siren: About four and a half hours left to enter. :siren:

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

(Also judge with meeeeeeeeee)

Edit: sorted.

docbeard fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Jun 14, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Quote is so edit!

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

:black101: Slightly more than two hours remain to sign up :black101:

(I got tired of sirens)

:siren: (No I didn't) :siren:

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

One hour remains to sign up.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Tick tock. Five minutes to get in under the wire.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

:siren: Signups are closed. :siren:

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

:siren: About three and a half hours remain to submit :siren:

(Assuming the forums last that long)

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

:siren: Fortunately for you, and this might be a bit of an overreaction, but because of the general state of the forums at the moment, I'm extending the submission deadline until 4 PM CST tomorrow. :siren:

Muffin, for the sin of making me think of a flash rule, your flash rule is: An unavoidable schedule conflict must play an important role in your story. (Okay, so I didn't have to think very hard.)

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

My apologies for not being around to hold hands and tell you what time it is like some sort of writing-specific Speaking Clock.

:siren: Submissions Are Closed :siren:

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Entenzahn posted:

hey jerkface thanks for waiting until four in the morning Eurotime before you gave america an extra day this is a brawl challenge

Psst, whatever jerkface made the forums gently caress up and prompted me toward an unnatural leniency toward those on all continents who might be barred entirely from disgracing themselves by the SA Support Robot (hint, if you were able to post your story, this is not you), I think this disgruntled soul is talking to you!

(But I'll totally brawl you anyway. After judging.)

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

:siren: THUNDERDOME XCVII RESULTS :siren:

So between the forums falling apart and whatever the gently caress’s been going on with this interprompt, this has certainly been one of the more interesting Thunderdome weeks in recent memory. But as with all things, so too must this week’s contest pass into dust.

Let us first take a moment to acknowledge the dishonored dead. Kalyco, Sam., D.O.G.O.G.B.Y.N., Stereo, Angrymantium, and dmboogie, even with the gift of extra time, could not find it in themselves to grace us with so much as a terrible story.

As for those who did write, I didn’t think the overall standard was terrible this week, though I feel like we need to have a conversation about heroes (which is what I wanted to read about), and what differentiates a hero from a protagonist. I will elaborate more on this when I do my crits. Still, the majority of you wrote something that at least vaguely resembled a story, and many of you even seemed to be at least aware of the prompt.

There were a couple of strong contenders for the top rungs of this particular ladder of filth. Honorable Mentions go to God Over Djinn (who came within a hairsbreadth of winning), Jick Magger, and SurreptitiousMuffin (even if the latter DARED TO DISREGARD THE FLASH RULE THAT I SLAVED OVER FOR SECONDS). All of these gave us heroic, if imperfect, characters and a real sense of a struggle with the world in which they found themselves.

Kaishai takes the week. The other judges can speak for themselves, but in the end, this one, for me, came down to the last thing I asked for in the prompt, which was to make me give a drat. And that’s what this story did.

Dishonorable Mentions go to BrilliantFool, for giving us the Cliff’s Notes instead of the proper story, CommissarMega for an incoherent mess, and Cache Cab for wasting a halfway interesting premise on a morass of cliche and characters of whom “paper-thin” would be too kind a description.

But these were, for their sins, still technically stories. I’m not quite sure what you’d call the thing that FuschiaTude wrote, except “this week’s loser.”

Take it away, Kaishai!

docbeard fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 18, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Okay, I wasn't sure how I felt about entering this week til I read the song list to date. Now I'm sure.

But I'm still in.

(Also, expect this week's crits from me toward the week's end, or possibly the weekend. Maybe earlier, but I will not be held responsible for any incidents of lost consciousness as a result of breathholding).

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Crits, Part One

“These are stern words, but be not alarmed. They are only words.”

A few pre-crit words only, since Schneider Heim touched on a lot of what I wanted to say. The film of The Long Goodbye was suggested; I’d, as well, recommend reading the book. It’s one of my favorite novels, and I love it because of its portrayal of Philip Marlowe as a lonely, bitter man who does something noble and remarkable and foolish, for someone who clearly doesn’t deserve it, and for reasons that he doesn’t know (though he knows it's not for any of the noble, or otherwise, motives that everyone around him ascribes to him), but that we probably do. Because he is, whether he thinks of himself that way or not (he does not), a hero (to quote Chandler again) “by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it and certainly without saying it.”

(Okay, maybe a few more than a few words.)

Not all of you gave me heroes. Some of you gave me people who felt slightly bad about being terrible people, or about doing terrible things. Some of you didn’t even give me that much.

The best of you gave me characters who couldn’t have told me why they do the things they do, because it’s like explaining why you breathe, but where I knew anyway. The best of you gave me people who valued things the world didn’t have a clue about, who had struggles no one else would ever notice or care about, who pay a price for what’s important to them, and sometimes that price is pain, and sometimes that price is anonymity, or any of a thousand other things.

And some of you gave me people wandering around a cave for no goddamn reason.

Cache Cab - When Judas Saved Jesus

This one, I am sorry to say, hurt. Not just because it wasn’t a good story, but because I really dug the premise, and wanted it so badly to be a good story. And then it just plain didn’t deliver.

Your descriptions of Hell and the temptations it offered were clichéd, but you could have risen above that if not for this story’s greatest flaw, its paper-thin characters. You give us almost nothing about Lukowe, and a brigand leader who believes himself holy enough to pass into Heaven in the world you’ve created is a character that demands exploration. Of Mahdi we know even less. He exists, he’s Lukowe’s second-in-command, and...nothing. He barely rises to the lofty heights of “plot device”. This, I think, is at the heart of what robs your finale of any poignance, That, and there are no real consequences to Lukowe’s decision.

Were you trying to parallel your account of Judas’ betrayal with Lukowe’s forsaking of Heaven at the end? It didn’t quite work, but I see how it could have, and the story would have been stronger for it. But then, I could end so many sentences about this story with those words.

If you do revisit this piece later -- and I kind of hope you do, for all that I’m skeptical about how useful salvage operations are -- focus on strengthening your characters. Make them feel like real people, and it won’t matter if they’re in clichéd or unreal situations.

Finally, your use of the word “retribution” puzzled me at the end. Did you mean “salvation” or “redemption” or something similar, instead? Also, your blatant references to the mean streets quotation did you no favors with me at all.

CommissarMega - Scapegoat

I liked this story more than my fellow judges did, but that’s not to say I don’t think they have a point. It’s never quite clear what’s happening, and while I’m all for not hand-holding the reader, clarity will never hurt your story. Benoit’s practice of ‘sacrificing’ individuals to protect their families made sense to me; the deal he was talking about with the Nazi-hunter at the end did not.

It’s a balancing act, of course; too much exposition becomes dull, and too little leads to, well, the reactions you got this week.

I’d also have liked more about why Benoit was doing what he was doing; the mention that he’d been a soldier before the occupation of France gives me something, but it’s not enough. As I said above, maybe he doesn’t even know, but we should. Whereas I think the opposite is the case here; Benoit knows on some level exactly what’s driving him to act, but we don’t get to find out.

Honestly, I’d have liked more of Benoit in general; You established Lucien so much more clearly as a character, to the point where I thought that you actually wanted to make him your protagonist instead.

Meeple - Old Ways

I think you need some demonstration of why Shauna wasn’t just an rear end in a top hat, why her approach of endangering innocents to get their data might have been the smarter play than Malcolm’s approach of only endangering himself. As it is, Shauna just looks like a chump, and I don’t think that’s what you were trying to portray. Had the stakes been higher, had what Malcolm did at the end been presented as more difficult, or even impossible, the story would have been stronger for it.

It’s the dividing line between a good story and a great one, though, rather than between a serviceable story and “oh my sweet gently caress what did I just read”. Your characters are sketched out, but I think they fall on the right side of archetype vs cliché, and the accents and dialogue largely work. Malcolm’s at least trying to be a principled man in a world you tell me (but don’t really show me) makes that difficult, which is in the neighborhood of what I asked for.

Entenzahn - The Bottom Line

Jackie is a desperate man driven to crime by poverty, and that’s a fine, if well-explored, motivation, but it’s more-or-less the opposite of the sort of story I wanted to see this week.

Which isn’t to say it’s a bad story. It’s not a great story either, I’m afraid. I almost admire the audacity of “Goddangit Jackie, you brought your wife to a train robbery.” but it’s completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the piece and, I think, to its detriment.

I don’t have a lot to say about this one otherwise, except that it didn’t really get anywhere near the prompt.

Broenheim - Small Town Justice

This went to a more interesting place than I expected when I started reading it. “Man plays vigilante to draw public attention to a wealthy and connected rapist who can’t possibly be prosecuted” is a twist I like a lot more than the mere revenge porn I feared I’d be getting when I started reading this. You could polish this into something worthy with some effort.

But please, please, edit your work. There is no goddamn excuse for “shot” instead of “shoot” once, let alone the three times I saw before I stopped counting.

Oh, and I haven't forgotten that I owe you a line-by-line of your Mammoth story. It will still happen.

God Over Djinn - Sarah Underwater

I cannot emphasize enough how close you came to winning with this. It is a very solid, very effective piece of writing, and it’s an interesting take on the prompt. The meanness of a world that is indifferent to the Sarahs of the world in the face of the Carolines works as well as the more obvious idea of a cruel and corrupt world.

Sarah’s flirtation with resentment, and her decision at the end being both heroic and a little selfish worked really well for me. This is fine work, and you should be proud.

Nethilia - Sundown Towns

I think the exaggerated reality of this setting works in this story’s favor rather than against it, though I can see why people would think differently. Anyhow, this one sucked me in and kept me reading straight to the end, and you earn all kinds of points for that alone.

I was left a little dissatisfied by Sally. I think I was meant to believe that she was risking something by defying the local law/custom as she did, but it’s not really clear what, and I don’t know quite why she risked it. Again, she need not articulate why, but it should be something the reader can answer with some thought. And you know, if the answer is just “she’s not a racist rear end in a top hat like her fellow residents of Daytown”, then fair enough, but some exploration of that would be welcome.

But the unanswered questions didn’t feel overlooked to me, so much as they felt like things that would be answered in the inevitable later parts of this story. It feels like it wants to be a piece of a larger whole. That’s no bad thing.

More to come!

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

More Crits

WeLandedOnTheMoon! - Making The Grade

I didn’t end up having a lot to say about this one. It was a fine story,and while I’m not sure it quite worked, Maggie being thrust into a world where her academic success didn’t count for much was an interesting take on the prompt.

BrilliantFool - The Whisperers

My initial comment on reading this, was “I feel like I’ve had a taste of something and been denied the meal it promised.” This is another story with something interesting underlying it -- the mystery surrounding the protagonist’s grandmother and whatever power she ascribes to speech -- that just goes completely undeveloped. And you weren’t even fighting the word count.

As a result, we know nothing about her, we know nothing about him, we know, essentially, nothing. And so we are left, in the end, with nothing.

Jick Magger - The Mirage

You had a few turns of phrase that erred a bit on the side of being too clever; “blinded by a sudden burst of flashlight”, while it’s a neat phrase, is a bit at war with the tone of the rest of the piece.

But that’s really the only complaint I had, and it’s a minor one. This is a solid piece of work.

V For Vegas - Ceiling Guy

This probably wasn’t objectively very good, but I liked it anyway. It carries itself on absurdity and charm. That’s a big risk, but you got away with it here.

I was left wondering why he didn’t just go out to, like, Home Depot and buy a ladder, though.

Kaishai - Writing On The Wall

From my initial notes: “I don't think this'll be my pick for winner (though it's hard to say) but it's one of the few that's going to linger with me long after this contest is forgotten.”

So what changed my mind? There’s something about the general theme of personal value being ascribed to objectively meaningless acts, thus rendering them meaningful after all that has always appealed to me, and I think that, in the end, is what made this story click with me so hard. Maybe your protagonist isn’t really a hero in the classical sense, but he occupies the same conceptual space as one, and his efforts are important simply because they’re important to him.

Its themes are reminiscent, in some ways, of another of my favorite novels, the combined Sailing To Sarantium/Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay. This isn’t the place to go into detail about that, but if you haven’t read those books, read them.

Nikaer Drekin - Small Victories

I hated this story. Not because it was a bad story; it wasn’t (though it was miles from the territory staked out by the prompt). But because it evoked such a strong reaction of “gently caress that guy” in me. Which, I think, makes it an effective piece of writing in its way. Better to hate your ineffectual spiteful gently caress of a protagonist than to not care about him.

I think that to turn this into a great story about a terrible person, though, once again I needed more. Some context against which his spite, his plans that come to nothing, his ineffectual revenge have some sort of meaning, or at least some reason for their existence.

Surreptitious Muffin - Constable Xinling Lands the Graveyard Shift

Even if you blatantly disregarded the flash rule you asked for, you turned in a solid enough piece of writing that it would be churlish to hold that against you. Oh wait, Thunderdome, so gently caress YOU FOREVER.

Idealistic cop in a world of corrupt cops is pretty well-established territory, but the execution of it was solid, and you use details well to enhance the experience rather than distract from it. I found the Special Branch cops a bit over-the-top but I even got a sense of humanity from them, in the end.

This, again, felt like a piece of something larger (which, from what you said before, it might well be).

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

The Dancer
1198 Words

docbeard fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Dec 29, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

My last few, much-belated, crits from Thunderdome XCVII

Fumblemouse - Getting His Wings

I liked the idea of the Sergeant’s thing for story mechanics, but it didn’t quite come off. Felt like you were winking at the audience a bit too much. It was otherwise a fine, well-told story that, for whatever reason, never quite grabbed me, and I think that’s down to the abrupt ending. I’d have liked to have seen more rumination on the events at the end. I don’t know if the protagonist thinks he did something worthwhile that ended badly, if he thinks he was an idiot, both, neither, or what. As it is, it just stops with the event and the Sarge cracking wise about character development.

Sebmojo - Justice Is A Good Machine

Were I to choose one word to sum up what I like about this story, that word would be atmosphere. This story does a fantastic job at giving me a sense of what it means to be,in this place. But again, I find it difficult to personally connect with these people. Everything’s held at some remove. Not necessarily a bad thing at all, some wonderful authors have done their best work like that. It’s just not what I prefer.

Ultimately the worst I can say about this one, though, is that there were better this week.

Fuschia Tude - The Climb

I have nothing against making the reader work a bit in a story, but the more work you require, the sweeter the reward had better be. And this just offers nothing but an admittedly clever (if you had pulled it off) puzzle-box plotline. I’ve done this before, and was rightly lambasted for it, and so I pass the experience on to you.

You give us a sequence of events, and nothing else. Imagine writing Hamlet as “The ghost of Hamlet’s father told him he was murdered by his uncle. He went a little crazy and hatched all sorts of schemes that ultimately led to the deaths of everyone he had ever cared about. THE END,” except even there you kind of feel for Hamlet. No such luck here.

No moral dilemma, no dilemma of any sort, no sense of who this farmer is, what prompted him to volunteer to go looking for food, what’s happening to him, or why it matters that he’s (assuming I’m even reading this correctly, and I’m far from sure of that) become the agent of his own destruction through some kind of time travel.

Nothing here matters. So why should I read it?

Grizzled Patriarch - Fresh Powder

Here we have another well-written story that just doesn’t quite fit the prompt, though I suppose a literal struggle against the environment isn’t completely alien to what was asked. You do a good job of evoking the hopeless situation that Albert and the girl are in, though I find myself wondering who she is to him. He’s in a desperate, difficult situation, of that there’s no doubt. What I think I missed here was something that pushes him over the line from ‘person fighting for his life’ or even ‘person fighting for the life of his sister/daughter/complete stranger’ to ‘hero’.There is, again, no sense of why. It’s a hard thing to do, because doubtless he doesn’t even question what he’s doing, but I should really learn something about him through his actions and responses to situations, and all I’ve really learned is that he’s apparently bad at hunting.

Tyrannosaurus - O.G.

I think what pushes this from good to better for me is the idea that Juko isn't just a victim of his past, but that he's actively complicit in maintaining that life for himself. It makes his desire for something better for Rozay that much more poignant. A strong entry during a pretty strong week.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

I'm in.

Miriam and Michael Augustine made their fortunes the old-fashioned way: by stealing them. That's all behind them now. They've long since traded their high-society con artistry and jewel thievery in for a life of idle luxury, devoted instead to each other and the finer things in life (particularly those fine things that come from a bottle). But their past isn't quite done with them. Nor they with it.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

My entry for the Docbeard/Muffin vs Entenzahn/Meeple Tag Team Thunderbrawl: Unnatural Disaster or This Is How World War I Started, You Know.

Ash (1029 Words)

I don’t know a damned thing about Java.

I bought a guidebook, one of those “Indonesia For Idiot Tourists” things, back in the States. I skimmed it during the flight. I don’t remember a word of it now. Julia had always wanted to come here, for as long as I’d known her. I wish I had paid more attention to her when she brought it up..

I could start so many sentences with “I wish” right now, each as useful as the last.

The woman jammed into this backwards tricycle thing with me starts to cough. We’re on a side street, I think, it’s too crowded to tell. It’s a run-down neighborhood, there’s an open sewer that I’ve just about managed to stop smelling, but I can see high-rises a block away, and mosques in every direction, and buildings older than I have ever imagined buildings could be. Everywhere I look, there’s a new sort of animal, lizards and feral cats and things I can’t put a name to. Recent damage mingles with the way things always have been. I can’t make sense of Jakarta, there’s too much of it, and I don’t have it in me to try. I’m here to make a grand, meaningless gesture. I’m here to mourn my friend. I don’t know why I’m here at all.

I fish a scarf out of my bag. I bought it earlier from a street vendor who must have been praying for an idiot Western tourist like me. I bought five of them. I don’t know why. Julia had liked bright colors, but who the hell doesn’t? One’s tied around my face now. I offer this one to the woman next to me. She waves it away, starts to cough again, and takes it. She dabs at her face before she ties it around her mouth and nose. Through all this, she says nothing. I couldn’t understand her if she did, and this isn’t a time to open your mouth.

There were tremors a few hours ago, and the air turned gray and ash is everywhere, everything. I thought it was an earthquake, or maybe we were being bombed, though I don’t know what gave me that idea. It turns out that I don’t know a drat thing about volcanoes, either. I’m getting an education today.

The woman sat down next to me right after the eruption. I didn’t, I still don’t, want company. I had, I still have, no way to tell her to leave, no way to live with myself if I could make her understand.

Our driver, whose name is Blue or Blow or Blau or something similar that I wasn’t paying attention to this morning does some kind of magic to avoid a car that can’t possibly fit on this street. As far as I can tell, he knows about thirty words of English and has been using them more-or-less at random all day. If he gets me back to my hotel, I’m going to give him every cent I have left. He starts coughing, too. We’ve all been coughing since the eruption began. The air is gray, everything is gray.

Julia liked bright colors.

The woman tugs at my arm. I don’t know her name. I don’t know how to ask her her name. I don’t think she understood when I told her my name was Jason. She points, and I see a boy, maybe a teenager, maybe younger, sitting up against a wall at the edge of the crowd. I thought they were fleeing. They should be fleeing. Buildings have collapsed. I can see fires. I can barely breathe. This is the calmest evacuation I have ever seen. I’m not even sure if it is an evacuation.

I see blood. He’s hurt, and there’s no way an ambulance is getting in here. She expects me to leap into action like I’m some kind of damned superhero. Or maybe she’s just playing tour guide. And on your right you can see an injured young man. Maybe he’ll die today, maybe he’ll just sit in pain, alone, surrounded by people.

I’m not a superhero.

“Come on, kid,” I say, lifting him. He can’t walk, but he can support himself on one leg. “I think there’s room for all three of us on that...thing.”

“Becak,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s telling me his name or cursing me or naming the tricycle thing. But he smiles, a little. And then he coughs, and becomes the inheritor of another of my scarves.

The three of us would have fit, with a tight squeeze. The four other people who got aboard before Blue got us underway again are another story. I don’t know how he’s moving this thing. Every loving cent I have.

“She wasn’t my wife,” I say to the woman, to the boy, to the two girls I imagine are university students but may be nothing of the sort, to the two older European gentlemen, to Blue. None of them give me any sign they’re listening, that they can hear, much less understand, which is why I can continue. “Or my girlfriend. We circled around each other for years, and I think we both wanted it, but never at the same time. Funny, huh?” It took time to say, because of coughing every three words.

One of the old men pats me on the shoulder, or maybe it’s just a nudge. I stop talking. I don’t want comfort. I don’t want a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to cry on, any of those goddamned cliches. I want the words to leave me and be lost in a city I know nothing about. I want to spill everything I’m feeling like the ashes I came here to scatter into a world of ash. The world won’t notice or care, and that’s what I want today.

Except that right now, all I want is to get back to my hotel and give Blue everything I own and shut the door and shower for a week.

Julia loved people, so today I hate them a little.

I give the two old men my last two scarves.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

If someone would like to lose the case at, or in the vicinity of, an art auction, hit me up. Likewise, someone who needs a delivery mechanism for the case into their story, the wilder the better. PMs or 99berserkers at gmail are fine.

Also,

Bad Seafood posted:



Adrian Stepwater

shall appear in my story.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

New Friends and Old - 995 Words

docbeard fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Dec 29, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

In.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Yeah, it's not happening this time. (Something something elephants and Old Yeller and then magic happens oh look bingo).

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

After my shameful failure to write a story containing five things, I'm in with a :toxx:

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

A Friend In The System
1197 Words

docbeard fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Dec 29, 2014

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

In with Week 44: Old Testament Studies with Chairchucker.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011


Edit, in case it gets lost in the churn: This prompt needs a judge to assign me a passage from the Old Testament as inspiration/The Greatest Flash Rule Ever Told.

Further Edit: Quote is not actually edit.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Word Bounty (You said it was okay if it sucked, right?)

The Prompt: Interpret the phrase viking party ends in disaster. I don't care how. 250 words.

Twilight Of The Gods - 137 words

Thor’s cry was mighty // when he beheld
The flag of his brother // marking the Pole.
“Cursed am I // and this wretched band,
For Loki hath come // first to this place.”

The storm then rose up, // their return thus was doomed.
One after another // the gods they did fall.
Baldur to frostbite, // Bragi did starve
Tyr fell asleep // no more to arise.

“I’m stepping outside,” // said Heimdall who saw
More clearly than most // they would never see home.
“I may be some time” // he strode from the tent
The gods never lay // eyes upon him again.

“In Odin’s great name,” wrote Thor at the end,
“Take care of our sons, // our daughters, our wives.”
These words were the last, // found carved into stone.
But of the party of Aesir // no trace would be found.

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docbeard
Jul 19, 2011


Thalamas posted:

Judges 2:2
"I told you, 'Make no agreements with the inhabitants of this land. Tear down their altars.' But you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?"

Why
1498 Words (1359 from the prompt, 141 from the word bounty, total of 1500)

docbeard fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Dec 29, 2014

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