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I hate this prompt because it will make me do research in my limited free time, but I am in because I promised on IRC I would be.
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# ¿ Sep 1, 2024 04:01 |
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Formaggio 912 words I wooed Rosanna with cheese. I judge by your expression that you don't think there is a natural connection between romance and cheesemaking. You are wrong. Like any true Italian, I am a passionate man, and my passion is my inspiration. The cheese I created for Rosanna was as pale and creamy as her skin, as deep and sultry as her gaze. It took six months to make. I called it Sensuale. We shared it beneath an oak tree as the river bustled past, and when I asked her to marry me, she said yes. I tell you without boasting, I am a master of my craft. From my love for Rosanna came many soft, rich, joyful cheeses. I flavoured them with the sweet tang of her lips on mine in the night, and the heady grace of her movements as she stalked through the midday market. Every man there desired her, and my secret jealousy became, in my cheeses, a salt, sharp aftertaste that drew praise from all quarters. I won awards, first in the village, then throughout Lazio. My hobby became a business, and my cheesemaking shed became a barn in which three men laboured. The money I earned bought gifts to delight Rosanna, and the savour of her delight inspired pungent, strong, confident cheeses: for I myself was strong, confident, in control of my career. I made a trip to Rome, where a friend had offered to introduce me to the best cheesemongers of the city. The first of them loved my cheeses and we made a deal for all of my stock within the hour. I hurried back to Rosanna. Perhaps I told myself that I would surprise her with my early return, but I think even then I suspected. That salt, sharp jealousy that throve on men's gazes in the market - I had controlled it, channelled it, but never mastered it. And now, her giggle mingled with his moans as I stood beneath our window, and the jealousy gained free rein inside me. I waited in the barn to watch him leave. His name was Rodrigo. Not one of the young men from the village; they had always been beneath her notice. He was a city fellow, a cheesemaker I had become acquainted with at the competitions in Rome. I said nothing to Rosanna, but my next few cheeses were thick and savage and bitter. He called again, Rodrigo. I was careful never to catch him, but I always knew. My workers made the cheese to my old recipes, and as the business continued to thrive, I turned that knowing to a new project. It takes years for a good cheesemaker to mature a strong, hard cheese; it also takes years for a good man to mature a strong, hard resolve to murder. In me these things became natural partners, and the cheese I created from my hatred of Rodrigo was strange and spicy, deceptively unaromatic, yet pungent on the tongue. It was one of my finest creations. The first national cheese competition was to be held in the Visconti Castle of Pandino. This castle is not like your English castles, all thick grey stone and scowling arrow-slits. It is an elegant pale yellow like a fine cheese itself, and airy and open. The inner courtyard, where the public would taste our cheeses, is surrounded with open colonnades and balconies. We met Rodrigo on one of those balconies, as he watched the crowds below. The smile he gave me was insolent. He fingered his moustache and carefully kept his eyes away from Rosanna at my side. "Giovanni! Good to see you." Two years a cuckold to this rat. Two years of pretended ignorance. Two years hiding the aching bitterness of every minute in my own wife's company. I smiled back at him and gestured to the judging taking place in the courtyard below. "You fancy your chances?" "Less so with you here," he replied affably. "What categories have you entered?" "All, naturally. I expect the hard cow's cheese to do best." "Ah, drat. I was pinning my hopes there myself." His mouth quirked. I hated him even more. "Try some," I suggested. I waved my bag of samples at him. "See what you're up against." "Oh! I didn't know you'd brought those," said Rosanna. "Don't mind if I do," said Rodrigo. My hand was steady as I handed him his death: a blue-wrapped cube of excellent cheese, laced with aconitine. He bit off half, savoured it, nodded appreciatively. "Could be a winner," he said. Rosanna stole the second half from his hand and popped it into her mouth, giggling. I should have stopped her. I should have seized her and taken it from her mouth. I should have confessed then and there. But that giggle stopped me. I had heard it before: standing beneath my own window, jealousy seething within me. I nodded to them both. "Excuse me," I said. I found a stair, descended, and passed through the courtyard, through the crowd, seeking escape and the open hillside. "The winner, in the hard cheese category: Vendetta, by Giovanni Bertoletti!" I barely heard the judges' announcement as I stumbled out of the gateway. What did it matter what they said? I had lost. The sun poured down upon me as I laughed at the sky. My next cheese would be world famous. A deep, dark cheese, mould-ripened and tearful, stagnant in sadness. I already had a name for it: Rosanna.
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![]() ![]() Yeah, welcome to THUNDERDOME CXXVIII. I just crawled out of my eldritch mahogany bed with its pillows stuffed with the zephyrous sighs of tormented spirits and springs reforged from the steel blades of countless abyssal warriors. You assholes wrote a bunch of lovely stories and landed me, of all people, on this hell-forsaken thunderthrone, and already you're clamouring for a prompt. I haven't had my morning tea yet. My rage is unbounded. I hate this throne. I didn't want this throne. For this, all of you will suffer. You will dance to my discordant, agonising tune. You will write me epic stories. Not just epic stories, but epic black metal stories. I wrote an IRC bot some years ago that generates black metal album titles. You will either choose one from the pre-generated list below, or ask me to generate you a new one and I will oblige. Reuse of prompts is fine. If I generate you a new one, you are stuck with it. WORD COUNT is 1000 words. If I can make loving cheese epic in under 1000 words, you can certainly do the same for black metal. SIGNUPS are due by Friday, 16th January at 11:59 UTC. SUBMISSIONS due by Sunday, 18th January at midnight UTC. PAY ATTENTION. This is UK TIME, you fucks. If you don't like it then gently caress you. THE JUDGES: Me, sebmojo, Sitting Here. THE PROMPT POOL The Pestilence That Enthralls Subliminal Silence Of Maggots Night Of The Armies Visions Of Sumerian Night Yearning For The Yellow Cities Desert Disintegrates The Forest Lethargic Army Of The Souls Of Burning Torture The Screaming Of Goats Void Vampires The Miasma And The Leprosy My Bloodshed Drowns Him The King Of The Whores Insufferable Commandments Of The Pagan Shrine The Citadel Of Dwarves Revealing Cthulhu You may also ask for a new prompt to be generated just for you. Wait! Here's another rule! Look, just because I hate each and every one of you with a hate individually crafted on the forge of Satan's hornéd torturesmith, that doesn't mean I want to stifle your creativity. Don't feel genre-bound. If you want to write a wrenching family drama, pick a prompt and go for it. But whether you decide to play this prompt straight or not, I don't want you using it as a crutch. Black metal is inherently epic, but we're here to learn how to write good stories. At least one character must display a range of emotions as your story unfolds. Convince me that they are a thinking, feeling human being, dwarf, vampire or maggot. You maggots. ENTRANTS Quidnose - Bloodstained Corpses Of The Twisted Quest (Flash Rule: Only the nose truly knows) newtestleper - Rampage Of The Crimson ![]() crabrock - Murder Me SurreptitiousMuffin - Yearning For The Yellow Cities PoshAlligator - The Hunger That Burns (Flash Rule: No self-inserts about your drive to write. Nothing to do with you particularly, I just hate that particular device with a passion and this seems like a prompt that could go in that direction.) tenniseveryone - Revealing Cthulhu Entenzahn - Lethargic Army Of The Souls Of Burning Torture (Flash Rule: A character can't spell and that makes everything become terrible) leekster - Night of the Armies SadisTech - The Miasma And The Leprosy (Flash Rule: Arithmetical incontinence) Jonked - The Citadel Of Dwarves J.A.B.C. - The Angel And The Reaper ZeBourgeoisie - Acolyte Of The Parasites ![]() Schneider Heim - My Bloodshed Drowns Him Verus - Xanthic Leviathan Of Battles DreamingofRoses - God's Venomous Bitter Dragonflame ![]() JcDent - Coffee Disintegrates The Night Doctor Idle - Flesnolk - Killing The Necromancer Screaming Idiot - Void Vampires Ironic Twist - Desert Disintegrates The Forest Grizzled Patriarch - Its Enslavement Enslaves Them WeLandedOnTheMoon! - The King Of The Whores Hammer Bro. - The Screaming Of Goats Bushido Brown - The Imprisonment Of Odin hotsoupdinner - Insufferable Commandments Of The Pagan Shrine Fumblemouse - Last Brimstone Of The Tombs Of Blistering Procreation (Flash Rule: Your story must involve someone going from point A to point B. Point B must be somehow important to the story.) chthonic bell - Defiling The Dark Corpses Your Sledgehammer - Unmaking The Carnal Demons (Flash Rule: Face to face in a different place when it all comes crashing down) Auraboks - Embers Of The Xenocidal Queen Walamor - Screaming At Hecate Nubile Hillock - Agitated Hunger Of The Kittens Of Grandiloquent Infinity (950 words) Bad Ideas Good - Visions Of Sumerian Night (940 words) Benny Profane - Dreams Of Apocalyptic Parasite ( Benny The Snake - The Screaming Of Goats ( ![]() asap-salafi - Its Fire Torments It (910 words) Megazver - Insufferable Commandments Of The Pagan Shrine (900 words) Maugrim fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Quidnose posted:FIRST SIGNUP I AM IN Bloodstained Corpses Of The Twisted Quest Read the prompt post you loathsome excrescence. Pick a prompt from the list or ask for a new one. crabrock posted:Generate me one, you pile of human filth, or I'll poo poo in your eyes so hard your dead grandma will go blind. Ohhh yes AGAIN HARDER Murder Me (that's your prompt, just to be clear) PoshAlligator posted:Thanks for the crits. Very pleased to have neither a DM or a Loss this week too. The Hunger That Burns (FLASH RULE: if this is a self-insert about your drive to write I will personally tear your head off and poo poo in your neck. Also disqualify you. Nothing personal.)
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J.A.B.C. posted:Maugrim the Postwelder! Count my bloody pen IN and bring forth a prompt so that I may slay it! Yes you're right I weld posts all the time, I weld them like nobody's business I craft them from the flayed skins of people who can't spell simple words like "wield", and then weld them together with their hot, hot tears Your prompt is this: The Angel And The Reaper
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ZeBourgeoisie posted:Bah! Generate me a prompt! Acolyte Of The Parasites
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Verus posted:in Welcome to Thunderdome, brave soul. Show me: Xanthic Leviathan Of Battles
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Then use the dictionary definition of Xanthic which is "yellowish" you illiterate nematode
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DreamingofRoses posted:I'm IN, with a God's Venomous Bitter Dragonflame Also what the gently caress is a contingent toxx. I'm counting this vvvvvvvvv Okay, if true, that's actually a pretty bold toxx. Accepted. JcDent posted:I'm in, for the shame of missing a Thunderdome deadline can only be washed away by either blood or pig poo poo. Congratulations! You get the first prompt to use one of the "quirky" words I threw into the bot's lexicon for amusement value. Coffee Disintegrates The Night Flesnolk posted:Someone I know keeps going "try Thunderdome!" so here I am, trying Thunderdome. Generate a prompt, please. I salute your courage. Your prompt is: Killing The Necromancer Maugrim fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I like the cut of your jib. Give me a prompt you son of a bitch. I want to see you do something creative with this weirdness: Its Enslavement Enslaves Them
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Bushido Brown posted:I'm in. Would you please generate a title for me? What is this timid bullshit Bushido Brown posted:I'm in. Give me a loving prompt before I rip out your entrails and stuff them down your throat. Much better. The Imprisonment Of Odin
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Your image has inspired the bot to produce: Rampage Of The Crimson Fumblemouse posted:In - please generate a thingy for me because I need more chaos in my life. Chaos you say? Here, have a borderline-nonsensical and potentially alarming prompt. Last Brimstone Of The Tombs Of Blistering Procreation
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chthonic bell posted:I'm in. Generate me a prompt, because Muffin took the one I was gonna take. Defiling The Dark Corpses
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Your Sledgehammer posted:In, Unmaking The Carnal Demons Auraboks posted:In. Prompt me. Embers Of The Xenocidal Queen
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Walamor posted:Give me your most metal prompt before I battleaxe down your loving door and rip off your fingernails as a sacrifice to the Lord of Nails. I approve of this request. The Lord of Nails and I are good pals. Your prompt is: Screaming At Hecate Edit: we now have 30 entrants and I'm getting pretty pissed off at the amount of reading I've landed myself with. SO: ![]() ![]() The word count is now 950, and will reduce by 10 after each signup. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Nubile Hillock posted:okay after some deliberation I'm in. Prompt me, you shitloving turdhuffer!! You get another comedy word insertion. Agitated Hunger Of The Kittens Of Grandiloquent Infinity (950 word limit) Benny Profane posted:Been lurking a while, making a play for the chalice. Hey gently caress you I'll take my lumps but you don't diss the GrimBot ![]() Just for that you're getting the first thing he spits out, rather than the product of skipping through two dozen nonsensical ones. Here: Dreams Of Apocalyptic Parasite (930 word limit) Oh that could have been worse. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Benny Profane posted:If someone gives you something, do you not take it from them? Are you trying to make a semantic argument here, or are you just being pedantic for the exercise? Your statement "I'll take the flash rule" appeared to imply that you had some kind of choice in the matter. I will personally be delighted if your apparent confidence is well-founded, as it will mean the mountain of poo poo I'm expecting to grind through will be 0.9 kiloturds smaller.
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asap-salafi posted:Can I can still sign up for this weeks Thunderdome? Generate a title for me please! You're good. Signups close in 23 hours and 10 minutes. Your prompt is: Its Fire Torments It (word limit: 910) Maugrim fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Doctor Idle posted:Maugrim, I'm a terrible human being with terrible tastes. Will you generate me a metal prompt that kicks me in the nads and washes my palate clean of my previous poor decision? Did you just change your mind and then pre-empt my insulting you for it? Who the gently caress do you think you are ugghhhhh I'm gonna castrate you with a garden rake and feed your gonads to the pigs I suppose if it will result in a better story you can have: Glorious Altars Of The Blood-red Insanity Edit: ![]() ![]() Also, in an effort to encourage staggered submissions, ![]() ![]() Maugrim fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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![]() ![]() I can't wait to find out in what creative ways you're all going to fail me.
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24 hours till submissions end. The following people will be getting line crits on their stories: chthonic bell, SadisTech, Benny Profane, Hammer Bro., hotsoupdinner, Megazver
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Djeser posted:Finish that poo poo up quick and post it. Disqualified for being late is better than nothing at all. This. If you submit, you will be DQ (and can still lose if it's awful) but you will not get a Failure.
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![]() ![]() As I sat high upon the blood-red Thunderthrone, I looked upon the masses arrayed before me, and I despaired that such vermin should occupy my precious waking hours. Yet it is the duty of a King to pass judgment. Truly, vermin you were. I suffered through over thirty stories that ran the gamut from dreadful to merely confusing. The few that weren't rife with grammatical, tense and punctuation issues were like tiny lighthouses guiding me through an ocean of blithering lexical incompetence. A significant number of you decided that the prompt made a good title for your story; you were almost without exception wrong. Quite a number of you failed to observe the secondary requirement of demonstrating emotional range, although only one of you completely failed to hit the prompt itself. (Special mention to JcDent who managed to hit almost every prompt, which would probably have earned him an HM for sheer gumption if only he'd managed to do it within the word limit.) How do I hate thee all? Let me count the ways. Dishonourable Mention to asap-salafi for managing to completely miss the personal tailored prompt. An ambiguous line shoehorned in right at the end doesn't count. Dishonourable Mention to Doctor Idle for his Glorious Altars of the Blood-Red Insanity. Using such an overblown prompt as your title was a terrible idea even before you juxtaposed it with a boring mess of a story that contained precisely one memorable sentence. Dishonourable Mention to ZeBourgeoisie for a low-effort non-story that you blatantly hadn't bothered to edit. Dishonourable Mention to Bad Ideas Good for following up one of my favourite opening paragraphs with a schizophrenic mess of tense issues, continuity errors and a confusing non-ending. Dishonourable Mention to newtestleper, special courtesy of sebmojo, for ITS ITS ITS ITS ITS JESUS CHRIST THERE'S NO APOSTROPHE IN THE POSSESSIVE RRAAAAGGHHHH. Our loser this week, by unanimous judge decision, is leekster. As a very basic starting point for your next effort, please at least try to make us care about your characters. The honourable mentions this week gained that honour simply by virtue of being somewhat competent stories amidst a sea of festering wordvomit. Let's see who didn't make the judges want to claw their own faces off! Honourable Mention to Ironic Twist for an enjoyable story with, crucially, a somewhat clever title that wasn't the loving prompt. Honourable Mention to Auraboks for a funny, readable and memorable story about a misunderstood guy who just wants to slaughter things and make beautiful gifts out of their corpses. Well that was a short list. Much to my despair, every week has to have a winner. Fortunately, I am saved from taking a knife to my own throat in protest of this rule by one person, who submitted a story that stood out to every judge as a well-written, impactful tale of brotherhood and redemption, despite its comically awful title. Congratulations crabrock, your Some Artificial Raspberry Flavoring Comes From The Anal Gland of a Beaver has earned you your week on the Thunderthrone. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Week CXXVIII Judgecrits! chthonic bell, SadisTech, Benny Profane, Hammer Bro., hotsoupdinner, Megazver - all of you are getting linecrits, so you will have to wait a little longer. Your Sledgehammer, Quidnose, J.A.B.C. - you were all disqualified for late submissions so I haven't read your stories yet. You will get crits after the rest are done. In addition, to the above, ZeBourgeoisie - P-Type Engineer Read-along comments: Mr. Bulwark is an interesting name. You are working your descriptions of the characters slowly into your prose but it's unsubtle and kinda drags me out of the story. Does it matter to the story that Max is blond or are you just saying "the blond" as a way to avoid saying "Max" again? Wait, they're getting up? They only just sat down. That wasn't much of an interview! Don't bother to seat them if they're only going to have this short a chat. Max is as confused as the reader at the abruptness, that's good at least "The young man" - you don't need to do this. There's a reason we use names - they stand for the person they refer to and are generally fairly invisible, so don't be scared of repeating them or just using "he". I don't get a sense for how big the flea-like parasites are until the very end of the story. HIT PROMPT? Yes (Acolyte Of The Parasites) WORD COUNT? Yes, some way under RANGE OF EMOTIONS? They're there, but somewhat hidden Overall thoughts: This is only barely a story - there's a conflict, but it gets resolved in a few seconds. You came in well under the word count - I'm going to charitably assume that you were going to be busy and had to rush this in to avoid the toxx. In your favour, you hit the prompt fine and there are multiple emotions to be found, if fairly sketchily depicted. Not in your favour are a variety of issues large and small that should have been picked up in an editing pass. I'm half tempted to do a linecrit, but I don't think I want to make the effort given how little effort is apparent on your part. DM candidate. WeLandedOnTheMoon! - The King of the Whores Read-along comments: "This ogre" - unlike the other ogres? "was foul heap" - was a foul heap "a shimmering steel chain" - this doesn't convey the image you mean it to. "Chain" as shorthand for "chain mail" is RPG nerd lingo. "capped" - again not the right word. Going to stop critting word choice here or I'll never get through it Tense issues (memory-lane trips that should be in the past perfect are in the simple past) HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Not really Overall thoughts: This isn't a terrible story, and given the prompt it could have been a lot worse. Your basic writing is letting you down though - it's rife with poor word choice and tense issues. I also didn't see much evidence of emotional range in any of the characters. I struggled a bit with the opening, but on a re-read it has some good foreshadowing. You also chose a good point to end it. Middle of the pack. JcDent - Necrosphinx Read-along comments: LOL HIT PROMPT? Yes, all of them (including the key one, Coffee Disintegrates The Night) WORD COUNT? No - way over (DQ) RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes Overall thoughts: A few grammar issues, a deluge of details, and a disqualification for being way over the word count. Nevertheless your achievement in spinning this into a somewhat coherent, entertaining, epic story is monumental. If you'd managed this inside 1000 words I'd be pushing for an HM at least. Schneider Heim - The Royal Scam HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes Overall thoughts: I enjoyed this one, but then I'm a sucker for sci-fi. Well-written for the most part, self-consistent, and I felt some sympathy for Princess Hyouko. You hit the prompt and the "range of emotions" requirement. This was an HM candidate for me; sadly, my fellow judges disagreed. Benny The Snake - Separation HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes Overall thoughts: You transcribed the prompt wrongly at the start of your post, but at least you didn't use it as the title. Honestly, up until the end I thought this was a decent effort. You hit the prompt and the range of emotions requirement. Some oddness in the tenses, some weird phrasing/images, but you set up the characters quite well and I was genuinely interested to find the cause of the screaming. Then, Billy gored everything to death (goats don't gore ffs) and the screaming turned out to be heralding the apocalypse, which was anticlimactic to me - you're resolving what I thought was a pretty interesting mystery by having the pastor mentioned at the start be right, and then leaning on the Bible for your emotional impact rather than creating it yourself, which I guess would work if your reader is a believing Christian, but I am not. Nubile Hillock - The places you walk Read-along comments: taught=taut ok this cat is coooool wait where did that daylight come from? creeped=crept wait is she actually a cat? obv not if she was kicked to her knees. I think my expectations were warped by knowing the prompt. ok she had a gun literally stitched inside her skin. Ew. HIT PROMPT? Kinda - where does "grandiloquent infinity" come in? (Agitated Hunger of the Kittens of Grandiloquent Infinity) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes, although kind of forced at the end I think Overall thoughts: Not bad. I don't get the title. I enjoyed the opening and would have liked the rats/talking to animals to play a larger part in the overall piece. A few odd grammar/wording issues, and I'm a bit confused by the rush of memories at the end, which feels shoehorned in to meet the "emotional range" part of the prompt. I also had no idea what the "transformation" was at the end - was it intended to be obvious? That confusion is what dooms this story for me. leekster - Black Sea Read-along comments: Boy I sure hope nobody is red-green colourblind! Okay these acronyms are blatantly hiding something Needs another editing pass and a spell checker I never found out what those acronyms stood for ![]() HIT PROMPT? Yes (Night Of The Armies) WORD COUNT? Yes - very short in fact RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Not really Overall thoughts: This is a vignette that uses 60% of the available word count and isn't terribly well-written either. I don't know enough to understand any of these acronyms and war porn. I don't understand the title. I don't have any reason to empathise with the characters. I don't see a range of emotions, particularly. All in all, I got nothing from this story. DM/Loss candidate. Auraboks - Embers of the Xenocidal Queen Read-along comments: The prompt doesn't a particularly good title. Hahaha these names hit the spot for me. "An absurdly large battleaxe" this is a missed opportunity to describe it. screaming flesh-closet, I love this Would have been nice to know exactly why the Queen was dissatisfied? [LATER] Oh this is a plot point, cool. "Killing the poo poo out of" - kinda funny, but lazy, you can do better than this Abrupt switch to a sort of fairy-tale tone here. "You have got to stop with this arts and crafts poo poo!" Ah brilliant, realisation strikes HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes Overall thoughts: The prompt doesn't make a particularly good title, although it almost works for the tone of the piece. This was easy reading and pretty funny. On occasion your descriptions were a bit lazy. The ending was... hmm. Bit of a cop-out maybe, but kinda works. I'd call this an HM candidate for sheer entertainment value. tenniseveryone - Revealing Cthulhu HIT PROMPT? Yes, from a pretty funny direction WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Hmm Overall thoughts: I love the idea of a stripping Cthulhu, it's a great take on the prompt - but for my money there's too much set-up here and not enough words spent on the climax. The out-of-sequence segue into what happens to Anders later is jarring, and I think would be better not included. Mid to low. Ironic Twist - Serpenteen HIT PROMPT? Yes (Desert Disintegrates The Forest) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: A great title that stands out in a week of lovely titles. This got off to a strong start, I really liked it up until the end of the first scene. But I felt like I'd lost the plot after that - I didn't know what the red thing was that had flashed, and I didn't know where we were with Tania, or who Tania was. The ending was good, although relies on remembering that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are different things. Tania's name changed to Nadia right at the end, which confused the heck out of me and I'm not sure it was deliberate. Still, a nice piece that hits the prompt just fine. High pile/HM candidate. PoshAlligator - The Hunger That Burns HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? More or less FLASH RULE? Yes (No self-inserts about your drive to write) Overall thoughts: Is submitting a Google doc a thing now? I'm not sure how I feel about that. *shrug* This is a good story that plays the prompt straight. It has some minor issues in the text and you could do more with the language in places, but really its simplicity is what makes it distinctive. I enjoyed your careful, loving descriptions of the process of eating. The sudden breaking point in the middle was unexpected and horrifying. The ending was pretty disturbing too and I wanted to know more, but I didn't really need to. High pile for me. crabrock - Some Artificial Raspberry Flavoring Comes From The Anal Gland of a Beaver HIT PROMPT? Yes (Murder Me) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: Holy poo poo. Well you hit the prompt all right, and this was a pretty affecting story. Given how you made me hate the protagonist at the start I really didn't expect it to end that way, but when it did, it worked. Nice job. HM/Win candidate. newtestleper - Revenge of the Crimson King HIT PROMPT? Yes (Rampage of the Crimson) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? No FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: Good descriptions/scene setting at the start - without ever having been anywhere near Jakarta I still got a strong sense of the atmosphere. I know you struggled like mad to get this under the word count but it doesn't show; the piece is pretty tight without being stilted anywhere. Not an ending with any great emotional impact, but I liked it. On the down side: you had some grammar issues (possessive 'its' doesn't have an apostrophe, and watch out for comma splices). I also never particularly warmed to the protagonist, and I'm not convinced you hit the "range of emotions" part of the prompt, which is the main thing that prevents this being an HM candidate. Screaming Idiot - Voidborn HIT PROMPT? Yes (Void Vampires) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: You hit the prompt, and had the sense not to use it as the title. The range of emotions part was fulfilled by the officer rather than the protagonist, but you hit that too. I got a chuckle out of the sudden change in tone following the lead-in, and at least a wry smile at several other points, but as a pure comic work this falls a bit flat. Part of the problem is it doesn't feel like much of a story - there was conflict all right, but no real tension. OK so they're vampires, it's established that they don't much care what happens to them, they get attacked, the main character is resigned to his fate, the end. Middle of the pack. Grizzled Patriarch - Body of the Host HIT PROMPT? Yes (Its Enslavement Enslaves Them) WORD COUNT? Yes (very short actually) RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: Your usual strong stuff. Forced me to think about what was going on. Came at both the prompt and the "range of emotions" rule from an interesting angle. Unfortunately I was left a little confused by the ending; my poor brain can't quite fathom the symbolism. DreamingofRoses - The Farewell HIT PROMPT? Yes (God's Venomous Bitter Dragonflame) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? Yes (a florist's shop must play a key role) FULFILS TOXX? I guess so (interesting story) Overall thoughts: Your prose is fairly hard to read. Long paragraphs of long, winding sentences with the occasional sloppy connection forcing me to reread them. You segue into way too much irrelevant historical description when I just want to get on with the story. I agree that some background is necessary to set up the emotional connection, but I feel this story would be tighter and have better impact if told straight-up chronologically rather than constantly dragging the reader out of the current scene with memories. Nevertheless, you did set up enough of a connection that I felt something at the end, and you hit both aspects of the prompt as well as your flash rule. I'm going to count this as fulfilling your toxx. asap-salafi - Its Fire Torments It HIT PROMPT? No WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: Huh. Okay. Your story has a lot of show/tell issues and I can't detect any hint of connection with the prompt, apart from a tenuous attempt to shoehorn it in in the final line, which makes using the prompt as the title of your piece extra bad. The rape stuff and "Fee-Fee the Monster" came out of nowhere - you'd have done better to foreshadow that a bit. The ending twist was half-clever but could have been clearer - I'm assuming Fee-Fee only pretended to poison himself but I can't be sure. If that is the case then I don't have much sympathy for Jai because he's stupid and blind to his brother's flaws and you haven't really sold me on why. Low pile. Bad Ideas Good - The Baker of Lagash HIT PROMPT? Yes (Visions Of Sumerian Night) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: I really like your opening paragraph. It goes downhill a bit from there though. The archaic phrasing is shaky in places, but more importantly your story is absolutely rife with tense issues. (Aside: A good rule of thumb is if you're going for an archaic vibe, stick to the past tense. That goes double if you're planning to include memory fragments, because if you're writing in the present and looking back, neither the simple past nor the past perfect sounds entirely right in English imo.) There was a continuity error with the bread, which burnt to ash and was then taken out of the oven only slightly scorched. And your ending was a confusing non-ending. Low pile/DM. Jonked - The Citadel Of Dwarves HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? No FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: I like poetry and blank verse so I'm glad you wrote this. Iambic pentameter is a safe choice. You slip out of strict iambs unfortunately frequently though, usually with a wayward trochee, and some of your phrasing doesn't sit right with me. You told a good tale and hit the prompt, although not so much the "range of emotions" requirement. Mid to high for me - could have been great with just a little better execution. Walamor - Screaming At Hecate HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: Whyyyy is everyone using their prompt as the title. It's not too bad in this case but I think you could have come up with something better. Good opening line though. It's unusual that you're using overtly modern language in what is presumably an ancient history setting, but I liked it. I like the names you've chosen but it's hard to keep them straight as they aren't really differentiated individuals. (good thing most of them die, then!) You have issues with cliché, unnecessary telling and POV - this might be a good one to line crit actually. Despite all this, it's a decent story sitting solidly in the middle of the pack. Doctor Idle - Glorious Altars of the Blood-Red Insanity HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yeah OK FLASH RULE? N/A Overall thoughts: A prompt is not a title, god dammit people! You have tense issues right from the off. The story is boring - boring - boring - what the gently caress is happening - lol cop-out ending with a side order of what the gently caress. Straight into the DM pile. Entenzahn - Embers HIT PROMPT? Yes (Lethargic Army Of The Souls Of Burning Torture) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? Yes (A character can't spell and that makes everything become terrible) Overall thoughts: Fowl != foul (I was making a pun when I did this in the other thread, goddammit). "It tasted like iron" is a cliché, although my noticing this did make it work when you reused it later. You hit both the prompt and the flash rule early and took the story from there, although I'm not sure you hit the "lethargic" part given that you say "the demonic hordes had made quick progress". Overall, you wrote a good story that I enjoyed, but nothing terribly memorable. Mid-high but no HM from me. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Doctor Idle, I just noticed last week was your first entry. I was pretty frazzled by the time I got to your story so my crit wasn't exactly in-depth. If you think a line-by-line crit would be helpful to you, you're welcome to claim one of the three free ones I advertised above! Totally up to you though.
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In-depth line crit for chthonic bell. Don't be intimidated by all the bold, this really wasn't a bad piece.chthonic bell posted:Defiling The Dark Corpses
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Interprompt Slippery 200 words The ballet slippers sat in the cupboard and hated her. When Sian put her feet in them, she could feel their resentment, pulsing up through the flimsy pink canvas. She rarely put her feet in them, but sometimes she had to, because they were the only ones she owned. Sian's ballet teacher hated her too. She danced stompily, which was not how ballet was done, but she needed to keep the slippers in line or they would kill her. They'd already tried once; she'd caught her arm a fearful crack on the concrete steps, and was lucky it hadn't been her head. "Demi pointe!" shouted Miss Treveille, and Sian lurched up onto the balls of her feet. The slippers groaned and hated. "My dear girl, you must at least try," murmured Miss Treveille into her ear. Sian always tried very hard, but somehow never looked like it. The slippers chuckled and whispered. "Soubresaut!" called Miss Treveille. Sian hopped forward, but the slippers resisted. She landed, wobbled forward, and smacked both knees into the hard floor. Pain flared white-hot. She rolled to the side and began to cry. When she burnt the slippers that night, they crackled and spat and raged.
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Line crit for SadisTech's Black Metal Week story. Sorry these are taking so long, everyone.SadisTech posted:Prompt: The Miasma and the Leprosy HIT PROMPT? Yes (The Miasma And The Leprosy) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Not really FLASH RULE? Hit (Arithmetical incontinence) Overall thoughts: You hit the prompt and did a great job with the weird flash rule. You told a story and it was suitably metal. I'm a sucker for the lyrical epic style and I'm glad you made the attempt, BUT... even with a ton of forced phrasing, it still managed to suffer from some stumbles of rhythm. There were awesome passages and dreadful passages. I also kinda wanted to know what happened to the villagers at the end - I think it might have benefited the story to use some of your 210 remaining words in a short epilogue. This might also have helped you hit the "range of emotions" rule, which I wasn't really feeling otherwise.
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Line crit from Black Metal Week for Benny Profane.Benny Profane posted:Prompt: Dreams of Apocalyptic Parasite HIT PROMPT? Pretty much (Dreams of Apocalyptic Parasite) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Pretty much FLASH RULE? Hit (Someone speaks one word too many) Overall thoughts: With only a few minor issues, this is a well-written, enjoyable story that hits the prompt nicely. I suspected when I read it that you'd go far in Thunderdome - grats on your HM in Spaceship Week by the way. However, there's not much in the way of conflict/resolution. This was an HM candidate for me as I'm a stickler for grammar, clarity and good sentence construction, but in the eyes of the other judges that wasn't enough to save it from a slightly lacklustre story.
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Oh hey look it's another linecrit for Black Metal Week! (Sorry for the slow pace of these, life and stuff, you know how it is)Hammer Bro. posted:The Screaming of Goats (942 words) Since you only half hit this prompt, I wasn't a fan of you using it as the title, particularly as it's a complete spoiler, as we will find out shortly. ------------------ HIT PROMPT? Goats? Yes. Screaming? No. WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes, although a bit hamfisted ------------------ Overall thoughts: Honestly, on the first reading I hated this story. The very first word (stereotypical redneck name) predisposed me to dislike it. It lacks any sympathetic characters, the setting is run-of-the-mill, the execution is pretty bad (the twist seemed so obvious to me I was left wondering if it was a twist, while the other judges didn't even notice it), and there isn't even a hint of epic/metal to help me forgive your other sins. It was the moderating influence of the other judges who saved you from a DM, and you were actually my pick for the loss until I got to leekster's offering. ON THE OTHER HAND you did actually tell a story, you hit (some of) the prompt and the range of emotions, and your sentences are punchy and readable, which I perhaps didn't give you enough credit for on my first run-through. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Linecrit for hotsoupdinner from Black Metal Week.hotsoupdinner posted:Insufferable Commandments of the Pagan Shrine I've been deriding most people for using the prompt as their title, but for this story it works fairly well. Hooray! HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes, although somewhat distanced Overall thoughts: This is a decent story, decently written, and nailed the prompt. Unfortunately, it's rife with lazy writing - there's a lot of telling and cliché which means it ends up distanced from the protagonist's emotions. As a result, it's not as engaging a story as it could - should - have been. Focus on making your words work much harder for you, and you'll be in good shape for an HM. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Linecrit for Megazver from Black Metal Week. Finally!Megazver posted:
HIT PROMPT? Mostly - not getting the "insufferable" part WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Not really Overall thoughts: I know you struggled with the word limit here, and it shows. The story as a whole is fairly unbalanced because the intro/scene setting take up pretty much half your story. You didn't really manage to fulfil either the "insufferable" part of the prompt or the "range of emotions" requirement. Still, I liked the theme, the opening scene was good, the dialogue was strong throughout and you dragged a couple of chuckles out of me. Overall, middle of the pack.
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A Classy Ghost posted:If you're over it by 6 words you can definitely find something to cut out. Yeah, it depends on the judge - some people are a bit lenient but you should never count on it. Personally I would get irrationally angry if you were over by such a tiny amount because trimming 6 words is an absolutely trivial exercise of an essential writing skill. Anyway, crits for Black Metal Week's disqualified-for-lateness submissions: Your Sledgehammer - The Acolyte ------------------ HIT PROMPT? (Unmaking The Carnal Demons) WORD COUNT? Yes (but DQ for lateness) RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? Kinda (Face to face in a different place when it all comes crashing down) ------------------ Overall thoughts: Um... I haven't a clue how this piece relates to the prompt? Others have already covered the other main issue: there isn't much of a story. Person is a scientologist, person wants out, person makes a plan to escape, person escapes successfully. I guess it's about his emotional journey, but that's hard to do convincingly in the space you have. There are a few tense and grammar issues noticeable, but the overall writing is pretty okay. There's nothing in here to make me sit up and take notice. Quidnose - The Sweet Smell of Success ------------------ HIT PROMPT? Yeeees... (Bloodstained Corpses Of The Twisted Quest) WORD COUNT? Yes (but DQ for lateness) RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes FLASH RULE? Yes (Only the nose truly knows) ------------------ Overall thoughts: I think you cheated a bit by hitting the prompt purely by including it as the band name! Though I suppose it could also describe the quest for a new WMD, so I'll give you a pass on it. Anyway, you incorporated your flash rule very thoroughly and it added a distinctly surreal element to what would otherwise have been a fairly straightforward story. I think it's better for it, actually, as weaponised black metal on its own is not especially original. You did fall down on the ending though, as it's completely unclear how the sounds they're making, which translate into delicious smells when filtered through specialised apparatus, get weaponised? J.A.B.C. - The Choices of Dead Men ------------------ HIT PROMPT? Yes (The Angel And The Reaper) WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? No ------------------ Overall thoughts: You have a pretty weird and off-putting turn of phrase. "made it on land and braced with their foes"? "Now cry and scabbing"? "His voice whispered past closed lips"? There's a lot of stuff like this throughout that makes me blink twice and re-read. I suspect this is a consistent problem for you that others have pointed out, so I'll stop critting that and focus on the story. I liked your description of the reaper, and that the soul made an unexpected choice at the end. Overall, this was quite an understated story, which I think it made work. It didn't hit the "range of emotions" requirement, but I did enjoy the imagery. If it hadn't been DQ, I think I'd have placed it somewhere in the middle, neither a DM nor an HM. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Linecrit from Black Metal Week for Doctor Idle Doctor Idle posted:Glorious Altars of the Blood-Red Insanity - 1000 words ------------------ HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yeah OK ------------------ Overall thoughts: This story makes me really sad. It's not even a story, really. It's a series of mundane things that happen to a mundane chap called Barney, with a brief hallucinatory interlude in the middle that contains the only bit of actual interest and conflict in the entire piece. But because you'd spent so many words on irrelevant scene-setting and pointless dialogue, you couldn't do the interesting part justice and had to completely gloss over the epic battle with two warlocks over a blood-soaked altar. And even if you'd cut the irrelevance and written a most excellent tale of heroism and crystalline swords, your punchline of "bad steak" is on a par with "and then I woke up and it was all a dream" and would probably have earned you a DM all on its own. It's not all bad though. There is that little nugget of good stuff hidden in there that you can develop. And you did occasionally manage to keep a consistent tense for whole paragraphs at a time, which convinces me that you could get it right if you were paying attention. I hope you'll continue to enter Thunderdome as, really, there's nowhere else to go from here except up. Maugrim fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Mar 1, 2015 |
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Linecrit for Black Metal Week - Benny the SnakeBenny the Snake posted:Separation (794 words) ------------------ HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes ------------------ Overall thoughts: So yeah. You already know I'm disappointed that you took an interesting premise and then turned it into just another heavy-handed Judgment Day Parable. Your other main problem is a penchant for weirdly ungrammatical or over-worded phrases, especially when prepositions are involved. I didn't hate the characters - they seemed generally believable and Molly was quite sympathetic, although they were both pretty stock, which my fellow judges tell me is a characteristic of your writing. Not bad overall, but plenty to work on.
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Linecrit for Black Metal Week - WalamorWalamor posted:Screaming At Hecate - 998 Words ------------------ HIT PROMPT? Yes WORD COUNT? Yes RANGE OF EMOTIONS? Yes ------------------ Well I guess Alkides got what was coming to him, heh heh! There were some stand-out bits to this story - I especially liked the first line and the details of what happened to the men of their expedition during the trek through the Underworld - but the overall plot and ending weren't notably exciting. I think because of the way you chose to tell the tale (in a distant third point of view with a very simple, matter-of-fact tone) it was difficult to really identify with any of the characters. You might have done better by going with a close third POV on either Demonax or Alkides throughout, which would have helped the reader to identify with the character in question and really feel it when bad things happened to them at the end. You could also have done more with the language in various places - keep an eye on your adjectives and make sure they're doing as much work as possible and not just there because it "seemed natural to put them there" - which is often a warning sign of cliché. Still, overall, it was a nice piece that I enjoyed reading as a fan of classical mythology.
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In. Never listened to the band so I will require a song. Tough as you like.
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# ¿ Sep 1, 2024 04:01 |
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Chess Piece Face 1000 words I'm hardly superstitious, but there's something unsettling about being awake, alone, at three o'clock in the morning that bypasses ego and heads straight for the id. So, although I'll laugh at myself come daytime, I'm committing yesterday's strangeness to paper. Maybe once that's done, I'll be able to sleep. There's a painter I know: a gentle old geezer named Jacob with a rambling beard, stained yellow with nicotine, that he never bothers to tame. I occasionally visit him at his cottage, which nestles shyly on a wooded hillside, off the beaten track but on the path of one of my favourite walks. Every wall of Jacob's cottage is decorated with paintings. Not his own: they're replicas of old masters, especially Rembrandt. I asked him about this during a chat over tea in his conservatory. "The painters of the Dutch Golden Age," he said, wagging a flimsy rollup at me, "brought us to the pinnacle of "real". Chiaroscuro, shadows and forms, brushstrokes too small to see. Accuracy of depiction, that was their grand achievement. But Rembrandt found something most of his contemporaries didn't: soul. Those people you see on the wall there," ash dripped onto the grubby carpet as he gestured, "are characters, not just would-be photographs. Do you see?" I looked, and nodded politely. My artistic education is lacking, though I've picked up snippets from these chats. Still, the paintings did have something: the wrinkled, lumpen features seemed all too human, thrown into relief by dim candlelight. There was one painting there that didn't belong, though. Amidst the browns and oranges and Dutch period dress, the green apple hovering before the bowler-hatted face seemed practically luminous. "Isn't that one Magritte?" I asked, proud at remembering the name. "Hmm?" He followed my gaze. Then he started violently and dropped his cigarette. He strode to the painting, fists clenching. "You!" he shouted. "What the hell are you doing there?" I hastily retrieved the fallen rollup. "Sorry... Did I--?" I flinched as he wrenched the offending painting off the wall, scattering flecks of plaster, and hurried from the room with it. I sat in shock for a moment. Jacob was an eccentric old codger, true, but I'd never seen him behave so. For lack of any other polite course of action, I decided to finish my tea and await his return. After a few minutes and an empty cup, however, I grew impatient, and went looking for him. Paintings adorned every wall, from waist height up to the ceiling beams. I didn't recognise many, but they were mostly portraits, and as I prowled about looking for Jacob, I felt as though they were eyeing me with suspicion. Eventually I discovered a little wooden door in an alcove beneath the staircase, half-hidden by a battered piano. I opened it, and found a set of stone steps leading down to a cellar. A light was on down there, and I descended. The cellar was a workroom. Jacob had shown me his little garret, once, with its single easel and scattered paints, and I'd thought him little more than an eccentric dabbler in his retirement; but here was a whole studio, with canvases big and small stacked haphazardly against walls, on easels, and across desks. Were these all his work? One nearby caught my eye, and I examined it more closely: a man in a top hat and frock coat, standing on a cricket pitch in front of a burning pavilion. His face was obscured by a chess piece, a white pawn, blank and smooth. It was like the Magritte, but every detail was different. The colours were muddier, more like the Rembrandt's, and the flare of the firelight behind the man cast deep shadows across the pawn/face. I felt a great curiosity to see behind that odd mask. Looking around further, I soon realised that every painting in that room was similar, yet different. Men and women, mostly with headwear but some without, their faces obscured by a miscellany of objects. "It's a metaphor, of course," said Jacob. I swung round; he stood in a doorway to a back room that I hadn't yet noticed. He looked defeated: his shoulders slumped and his face slack. "Magritte was saying that we all wear masks. The face we show to the world isn't the face we see ourselves. An elementary truth, really." "Is that why you paint - these?" I asked, gesturing around. "Are masks so important to you?" His mouth twisted. I'd said something amusing, apparently. "You could say that." "You aren't selling them?" I asked. "They're really good. A bit disturbing, but ... interesting." He took a few steps, his eyes wandering around the workshop. For a moment he looked confused, and very old. "Sell? No, no... that would be like slavery, wouldn't it? Oh, I wish I could be rid of the drat things. Take one! Take this one." He thrust the painting of the pawn-faced man at me. I took it; it was only polite, and it was a rather good painting. "Er-- thank you. What do you mean, slavery?" "I told you," he said earnestly. "It's about soul. The people I paint are people. Learned from the best, heh. I have to cover their faces just to get them to leave me alone at night. Some of them are really nasty pieces of work." He glanced at the painting he'd handed me, and his face twitched. I'm ashamed to say I made my excuses at that point, and left. I hadn't realised he was quite so senile, but I do feel sorry for him, and he's usually good company. The painting makes me uncomfortable, honestly. I've put it in the back of the wardrobe, but I have a strong urge to take it out and look at it, try and see behind that mask. Maybe a little paint remover - just a little, to take the top layer off. See what's there. Maybe once that's done, I'll be able to sleep.
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