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angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart



edit: I am so excited

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angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Dance of Fairies - 100 Words

Älskade Älskling, most beloved of the fairies in Falkenberg's fjörds, mounted her Corgi, lance in hand. Across from her, and barely visible through the falling snow, sat Mörker Mörkensson atop his panting Pembroke. Älskade spurred her Cardigan steed forward, and it scurried headlong across the snow, ears back. She pointed the tip toward Mörkensson's plated chest. His lance as black as his name, Mörkensson's corgi too was cast with shadowy markings, though its white chest and paws blended into the snow-blinding sky.

They clashed, and the fairies danced under shards of spear.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
In.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
LATE ENTRY. Was vomiting up everything I ate yesterday, but I'll take a DQ over a failure.

Jugendherberge 1254 words

Fabian looked like a douchebag. He wore a plaid checkered hat with a stubby bill and long shorts that went down way past his knees. I’d known him long enough to know that he’s not really a douchebag, even though he sat with his legs wide open, as if his balls were so large and needed extra space.

“Are you still drunk?” I asked Fabian.

“Yeah, you?” His head wobbled around, or maybe it just looked that way.

“Yeah. Thanks for getting us back to the hostel last night.”

“I have no idea how we got back.” He laughed, but I knew it was him. He was German, and good at being drunk. There’s no way I’d have made it back alone. When we woke up, there was water all over the floor by our beds. I always drank a lot of water before I went to sleep, but I must have dropped the bottle and been too drunk to clean it up.

I saw all the other people on the train dressed to go to work, and I felt self conscious. I put my aviators on and looked across at my reflection. The big zippers on my chest pockets were definitely the coolest part of my outfit, but the aviators really tied it together. The train stopped, and more people got on. I watched for Ellen, but of course didn’t see her.

Summer in New York City was just as muggy as Florida, but there was less A/C. I was too hot to care where we went, so I just followed Fabian.

“In Germany these shoes would cost like, 90 Euro! Voll geil!” He holds up a pair of giant shoes with green four-leaf clovers on them. He’s already bought two other pairs. How many shoes did he need?

I humored him, and he eventually bought the pair with the clovers.

“Hey, let’s call your ex.”

“Why?” I had hoped to run into Ellen, and had been watching for her since we arrived. There were nine million people in the city, but still, it could have happened. But I was not going to call her.

“She can get us some weed.” This was the only girl who had ever loved me back, and she had been the one who had stopped loving me. Fabian didn’t understand the emotions I felt, and how much it had hurt for her to discard me. I wasn’t ready to contact her again; I wasn’t confident enough or good enough. No, I couldn’t call her, but if we had just run into her, that would have been different.

“Nah,” I said, “she’s annoying anyway, you don’t want to smoke with her.”

“Alright. Let’s go back to the hostel though, I want to drop all this stuff off and take a shower.”

Back at our hostel I passed by a girl who I had talked at for twenty minutes the previous night. I had acted more confident than I felt, but I felt self-conscious about it, and she must have sensed it. She looked down at her phone, pretending she didn’t see me. She wasn’t really that great anyway.

Fabian and I went into our room, it was 100 square-feet with twelve bunkbeds. There was barely room to walk. The Czech couple whose beds were across from us were inside, and they looked at us and spoke in Czech. Fabian threw his shoes under the bed with all the other clothes he’d bought.

I put some stuff away, and remembered that my phone was still charging on the window sill. I went to get it, but the Czech guy had planted his foot on my bedpost. His sculpted calf blocked me from the window.

I asked him, “Hey, can I get my phone real quick?”

He didn’t move, but he looked me dead in the face and said, “No.” His ‘no’ was flat and robotic and made no sense. I just wanted my phone.

“Uhh, it’s right there,” I said, “I can just grab it real quick.”

He didn’t look away from me, and his face was red. “No.” The vowel was flatter this time. He was mad at me, and I felt terrified. I scanned my hungover brain for a possible reason, and it clicked onto the spilled water. Surely it was just water.

His girlfriend helped me out. “Do you not remember what you did last night?”

What I did last night? God, no. Had I pissed the bed? My underwear and sheets were dry. My face burned, and an icy-hot tightness shot down from my neck and swelled in my chest. Blood pulsed along my ear canal.

“No…” I said, looking at her as if to say that I was a good guy and didn’t usually drink. She must have seen Love in the Time of Cholera on my bed. Guys that read books like that don’t black out and...and what?

“You came in really drunk late at night,” she said, “and you stood in front of my bed.” hers was the one on the ground, right across from mine. “And then you pulled your pants down and pissed all over the floor under my bed.”

I felt the tiny room shrink even more, and choking shame enveloped the three of us--the two Czechs and me.

“All of our things were under there,” she keeps going, “we spent the whole morning washing everything, and our shoes were ruined because we couldn’t get the smell out. We had to spend the rest of the day buying new clothes.”

She was mistaken. “I didn’t do that,” I said.

The boyfriend stared me down.

“How do you know...” the shield of denial was already crumbling. “It wasn’t me.”

Shame contorted the girlfriend’s face. “I know,” she said, “I...saw you.”

Could I apologize for something I didn’t remember. Even if I could, what good was an apology? I had to show sympathy though. “I’m sorry, but I still can’t believe I’d have done that.”

The boyfriend looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re just a loving piece of poo poo.” And that was it, that was the worst I’d get. He wasn’t going to hit me, and he wasn’t going to call the cops. It didn’t seem fair.

“Take your phone and go,” the girlfriend said.

He took his leg down and glared at me as I took the phone away. I said I was sorry again, and it felt pathetic and empty. I grabbed Fabian outside.

“There’s no way you did that,” Fabian said. “Why would she just watch you do that, then let you go back to sleep? It doesn’t make any sense.”

He wanted me to feel better, but I just wanted out. “There’s no way we can sleep there again tonight. Can you go back in and get our stuff out?”

Fabian did it for me. I couldn’t face the Czechs again. I sat in the hostel lobby and saw the girl who blew me off laughing with people way cooler than me. I was glad I hadn’t run into Ellen. I wasn’t good enough for her, but I would change that. I had to grow up.

Fabian came back with our things, and said, “They are gone, and I got all our stuff. The shoes I just bought are missing though. I think they stole them.”

I probably should have paid the Czechs for pissing all over their clothes, but instead I paid Fabian to buy a new pair of leprechaun shoes.

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Feb 17, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I want my flashrule now also, since I usually start writing early. Also I'm not going to call "in" until right near the deadline since I am apparently awful at submitting on time.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
In then, I guess

This is my set:

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Feb 18, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Flash Rule: Strong Island Iced Tea.

Wingmen 749 Words.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kR-Rb9wdr94ZE1-v-Su5FP-jUb5LN7z0DyGWsvPocBs/edit

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Stilted Dialogue!
Meandering Plot!
Said-bookisms!
Overwriting!
Thesaurus!

By your powers combined, I am Captain Thunderdome!

:siren:Week 82: Captain Thunderdome:siren:

Judges: systran, SaddestRhino, and sebmojo if he wants to
Deadline: Sign-up deadline, Friday at Midnight PST. Submission deadline, Sunday at Midnight PST.

This week will be ANONYMOUS and COLLABORATIONS will be allowed, but not required. There will be no flash rules at any point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Imaginary_Beings
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3wQJPzJ6xo2M0NvYjRjcFk3d1U/edit?usp=sharing

You will choose a being from either list and it must EITHER inspire OR appear in your story. Just because you are writing about one of these beings doesn't mean you HAVE TO write horror/fantasy. Notice I said INSPIRE as a possibility; this means you don't HAVE TO have the whole story revolving around this creature literally existing in your story.

If you choose to collaborate with others, you may do it in any way you want. You can write a seamless, single narrative together, you can write a series of inter-connected short stories, you can write a series of stories that share the same theme. I don't care at all how and to which extent you collaborate. Up to four people can work together, but just keep in mind that the more people there are, the harder it will be to meet up together. I strongly advise working with people in your time zone.

If you don't know anyone and want to work together, I encourage you to join synirc.net #kyrena to look for people to work with. Also if someone who has won a few times or got honorable mentions wants to team up with newbies, that would be really cute. Baudolino should definitely join IRC.

COLLABORATION IS OPTIONAL. You may be a maverick and write alone just like any other week.

Word Counts:

1 person: 1,000 Words
2 people: 1,700 Words
3 people: 2,100 Words
4 people: 2,200 Words

If four people are working together, they will have ONE PERSON submit on their behalf, and the total word count of whatever the collaboration is must not exceed 2,200 Words.

If a team wins, they will vote one person on their team as winner. Everyone else on the team will get the honorable mentions. The same goes for losers.

When you sign up, don't loving tell me which creature you pick. And don't tell me who you are collaborating with. THIS IS ANONYMOUS WEEK.

:siren:DO NOT POST YOUR STORY ONTO THE FORUMS:siren: Email your submission to RadSeafood@gmail.com. Subject of the email MUST BE "Thunderdome 82 Submission." If you put a different subject you may be disqualified. You can have the story in the body of the email or you can just link to a googledoc. Badseafood is going to paste all the stories into a master document, which the judges will use to read, crit, and choose an anonymous winner and loser from. Once the signup deadline is up, I will post the link to that document so everyone can read all the stories.

If you are worried/paranoid that your submission didn't get through, you can go on IRC and talk to Badseafood to make sure he received it. He will be very secretive and not spill the beans to ANYONE about who is who.

In:

SurreptitiousMuffin
Chairchucker
QuoProQuid
Paladinus
Jeza
crabrock
Black Griffon - Dropped out
Erogenous Beef
Crab Destroyer
No Longer Flaky
WeLandedOnTheMoon!
Whalley
Tyrannosaurus
SurreptitiousMuffin
Meinberg
JonasSalk :toxx:
The Leper Colon V :toxx:
tenniseveryone
Starter Wiggin
Fanky Malloons
Noah
Mercedes
Baudolino
Sitting Here
curlingiron
Entenzahn
Nikaer Drekin
Fumblemouse
Masonity
elfdude
Lake Jucas
Dr. Kloctopussy :toxx:
Jay O
Quidnose
Palisader
Anathema Device
Nethilia
Lead out in cuffs
lambeth
Echo Cian
Djeser
Schneider Heim
Oxxidation
Jonked
Benny the Snake
Illegal Carrot
That Old Ganon
Phobia

:siren: SUBMISSIONS SO FAR: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GG3cP-SU0My6dkbmNFcVDzFjJVuTOXo6xGPszzmaW-c/edit CRITS WILL FOLLOW AFTER WINNER IS ANNOUNCED! :siren:

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Mar 2, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I have edited the prompt post with anonymous submission instructions. Please remember not to post your story into the thread. If you do, you will be DQed.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Two people have asked this now:

You may only have involvement in ONE story. You cannot submit a solo story and take part in a collaboration. It's either one or the other. You cannot take part in multiple collaborations either.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

quote:

Would we be able to "out" our stories in the Fiction Farm come next prompt if I just gotta have some critique?

I don't know what that means? I am going to critique every story that is entered this week, and Rhino and Sebmojo likely will as well.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I'm going to post links to a google doc with all the stories, and you'll find your story and see the crits on it.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Sign-ups are closed.

Here are the submissions so far: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GG3cP-SU0My6dkbmNFcVDzFjJVuTOXo6xGPszzmaW-c/edit?usp=sharing

I will be doing my crits in a seperate googledoc. Seafood will add stories in as they come in.

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 2, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I'm going to post my crits once the deadline is over. It will be a google doc that will update as I crit. I have already done a crit of every story that has been emailed so far. If you submit before 11pm EST, there is a strong chance you will have your crit tonight or first thing after I wake up. Anything submitted at the last minute will have the crit up a lot later.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
You have a few hours left, and I'm going to bed soon, so here are the crits so far https://docs.google.com/document/d/197zxyCyRaFWJvbBxbN_ubwy3VqmaXArP28rTxRknq58/edit

Do not reveal yourself to people in IRC or in the thread! I will disqualify you from winning if you tell people who you are. Don't loving do it. If you reveal yourself you can still lose though, so don't try to be cute.

Even though I did a number system on this, number systems are kind of dumb and it's mostly for my own reference. The judges have barely conferred so far, so hold tight anything could happen!

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
All of my crits are done, and Rhino is working on his. We will probably end up waiting on sebmojo; I'm hoping he has done a lot of crits already.

Once the winner is announced, feel free to ask me in bold Systran, longer crit please. My story is: NAME OF STORY

Also, once the winner is announced, I'll ask Seafood to enable comments on the master document, and I encourage everyone to go edit their name into the title of each story so we can see who everyone was. Please do this so that Kaishai and Crabrock can record everything properly into the archives.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
:siren: RESULT POST :siren:

Winner: Full Course

Everyone agreed on this, we didn't have to discuss it.

Loser: The Bird of Fortune <-- Confirmed that this was Benny The Snake

Everyone hated this the most. It was a special kind of laziness and poo poo story. There were a lot of nonsense stories, but we could feel the authors behind them at least trying to put some fun or cool ideas into the stories.

Honorable Mentions:

1) The Harpy

I loved this story, and the other judges had no issues with giving this an HM.

2) The Hidebehind

This was solid, and we weren't unanimous, but 2/3 judges agreed (we couldn't check with one) this could get HM.

Dishonorable Mentions

1) "Untitled (the one that begins with: Threadbare cloth yielded to the breeze."

Totally unclear and bad prose. At least you tried harder than The Bird of Fortune.

2) "Monkeys' Wedding"

Unclear, bad prose, confusing as poo poo. Painful descriptions. loving stiff boner knives as an ending???

3) Lead us not to temptation

This was offensively boring. I can give you a longer crit if you'd like, but I feel it had no actual characters, if that makes sense. Your protag/antag was just disembodied evil, and it followed around a guy who was cartoonishly good.

GO INTO THIS DOCUMENT AND LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR FORUM NAME ON YOUR STORY TITLE!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GG3cP-SU0My6dkbmNFcVDzFjJVuTOXo6xGPszzmaW-c/edit?usp=sharing

Whoever wrote the winning story can post a prompt whenever they'd like. If the winners or losers were a team, choose the true winners and losers and report back here ASAP.

If you toxxed yourself, please quickly claim a story so we don't ban you.

THE BROWNIE AWARD SHOW

Somehow none of the terrible Brownie stories got DM, BUT:

Most rapetastic and creepy brownie story: Working Title

Even though this was a creepy loving story, it was the best Brownie story.

Worst brownie story: Thomas and the Elf

I hated how everything became irrelevant and out of nowhere you had them just talk about the kid's dad. Ugh.

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Mar 4, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Here are additional crits. I think these are the only two who asked me for one:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QQv4Z01SgSKfNsmGZgVQSFft3nmoc8EVXk6fFmWSfiA/edit?usp=sharing

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Mar 4, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I finished the extra crits that were requested (if I am totally dumb and still forgot someone let me know). Also if you didn't ask for a crit already, don't ask for one now, these few extra crits took me like two hours:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QQv4Z01SgSKfNsmGZgVQSFft3nmoc8EVXk6fFmWSfiA/edit

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
"In," systran bellowed.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/brawls.php?story=27

quote:

“Preliminary Observation: Mistress' endorphin levels are 200% above previously recorded levels and falling. Conclusion: This Unit has met/exceeded Mistress' expectations. Query: Is this correct?”

“Yeah...you were amazing, Ashlan. I never knew...I never even thought that...”

“Self-Deprecating Observation: Mistress was the better performer.”

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Mar 13, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Empyrean Son - Less than 1000 words

In the long shadow of the ziggurat at dawn, the lesser man knelt before me and begged forgiveness. I raised a cool stone and slammed it against his jaw. Teeth white as ivory spilled from his mouth as he fell. When he recovered and rose his head, I thrust my dagger through his eye. I placed the bloodied dagger and shattered teeth on my wife’s pillow that same morning. When I returned for dinner, our bedroom was clean, and my wife had prepared lamb with lentil soup.

#

As highest advisor to the King, I was not reprimanded. Just as the King had power over me, I had power over those beneath me. But the King said, "Perhaps this is wrong. I task you to find what is truly just."

#

I wanted to clear my mind, so I paid for a drink and a woman, taking the woman first. She mounted me, and then I her. Just as I finished, mud gushed from her mouth. She sprang forward and knocked me to the ground. Earth oozed between her teeth and her nostrils as she squeezed my throat with her hands. She smiled at me, and I knew from her eyes she was dead. I woke up caked in dirt and with a bruised neck.

#

The high priest offered me water, which turned to dust in my mouth. I choked and gagged, coughing up a throat full of sand. I bit into a loaf of bread, and it melted to a coarse mud, grinding against my teeth.

"I can see into the underworld," I said to the priest. He assured me we were alone, but in the darkest corners of the temple I saw them moving.

"And you taste it as well," he said.

I had sent a man to this dark world of mud and dust, and I too would go there.

#

I found I could live on sand and earth, yet it never quenched my thirst or sated my hunger. I lived like this for a tortuous year, and the King still awaited my answer. In the riverbanks at dawn as I slurped up my sustenance of sludge, I thought of an answer for my King. I paid a man to bash my teeth and pluck out my eyes, then I went to see the King.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Edit: Nevermind

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Mar 17, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Give a bee a bone(r) 191 Words

Alroidian, high priestess of the bee wizards, challenged Elar, arch mage of the dog magi to a duel most fearsome. Alroidian opened with a salvo of bumblebees, while Elar countered with miniature pugs. The pugs' flat faces acted as hammers, squashing the bumblebees against the marble floor of the dueling grounds.

"Ha!" Elar chortled, "Bee wizardry will die out. It will be an irrelevant oddity in the Tiersauberernomikon, and--here I jest in a friendly fashion--it will not even bee deemed worthy of beeing retained in future revisions!"

Alroidian summoned wasps and hornets and dire-bees, which could only be countered with Greyhounds and Labradors and dire wolves, respectively. The attacks cancelled each other out neatly, and both Alroidian and Elar felt most impressed with each other and aroused. They exchanged further barrages of bees and dogs, and equally saucy banter.

Finally Elar dropped the bone-staff in his hand while raising another, and Alroidian gave up her honey.

The newest addition to the Tiersauberernomikon reads thusly: "Dog-Bee Magic is most fierce, as the dogs bark and shoot bees out. There are no known counters. Bee-were!"

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Mar 18, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

You have to buy health insurance before you sign up

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Mar 21, 2014

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

HopperUK posted:

This is already so much worse than last week

You're going to post without a prompt? What the gently caress?

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
That's the spirit, run into the wall until you break through it!

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

sebmojo posted:



edit: actually, fuckit. Systran, brawl me or be proven a weakling before god and man.

Okay, you choose a judge etc.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
k

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
i accept your terms
/

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Is my brawl due in just over 12 hours, or do I more like 36 hours?

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Okay... let me preface my brawl piece by saying that I wanted to achieve an effect of

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Full Disclosure:

I procrastinated my brawl. I wrote like one paragraph on the first day it was assigned, then I didn't touch it until yesterday. I've spent maybe five or six hours on it in the last two days. If it's cool with Seb and Muffin, can I have until Midnight tomorrow (Wednesday) EST? I don't want to ask for way more days, but I just want a few more hours to get it in better shape after work tomorrow. I will still submit by the the original deadline if this request is denied!

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
MY SUBMISSION FOR THE BRAWL VS SEBMOJO WHICH MUFFIN IS JUDGING

Seb, I hope that you are waiting until the last minute to post. I want a good fight, you piker.

Here is my submission for the brawl: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FzHWK7o2CmYAd2CtDqpuMyLwDAkGahJxMDaQFi9SBx0/edit

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
remember when cantdecideonaname and inthesto fell in love, brawled each other, and disappeared forever?

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Some Guy

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Having won the alien brawl vs. brawlmaster sebmojo (100% brawl win-rate here!) I will step up to judge this also.

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angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
you just butchered the gently caress out of the german language

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