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  • Locked thread
sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Mercedes posted:

Bromancers

I plan on judging this as fair as possible but for me to avoid the thread for a week is too much. So when you're finished with your story, please hand the story to Kaishai, our resident AI, and she'll post it for you.

I'll be judging this with Merc. Piffle paffle will be extirpated with the ruthlessness of a Word-Mengele.

e: also, in with: "Inanimate objects no longer write journal entries when they die"

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jan 5, 2016

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sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









crabrock posted:

oh look a bunch of brawls that nobody will submit to. awesome.

"Fixed immortal crabs"

^ you should probably do this one

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Sitting Here posted:

BTW I will be assigning exclusively Bowie songs, hit me up for a flashrule if you want to get your Bowie on

IN, with I'm Deranged

:toxx:

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









deleted

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jan 2, 2017

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Julias posted:

For the record, I got lazy, and was originally going to do a serious story, but had to come up with 95% of this in an hour, so I was literally rushing to get this in before Midnight. I know it sucks, but that's what I get for procrastinating. :v: Who knows. Maybe somebody will still like it.

what the gently caress is this snivelling bullshit

e: it's very simple: read the prompt, write the story, post the story, call everyone assholes, crit everything you can reach.

does 'ooooooooh this silly old thing shucks just tossed it off it's probably terrrible i could have done something WAY better if i'd actually tried lol' fit within this rubric:

no it does not

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jan 18, 2016

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









judgeburps

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









'crabrock', you say



in

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:toxx: Kai will have a draft of this story by 2359 Sat PST

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









God Over Djinn posted:

shhhhhhhhhhhh

pay no heed to their nonsense titus82 you're gonna do fine here

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Broenheim posted:

Word Bounty for Everyone Involved

my other ref is too nice. all this stuff about fans and friendship and bullshit. gently caress that poo poo, this is sports, were loving fighting each other 'cause there's only one person on the time that matters and that's you. everyone is loving morons who cant hit a ball. so then, i want you to write about why you think youre the best, why youre going to win this entire thing, and why everyone else youre playing against is poo poo and why the rest of your team should thank you for providing even a little bit of quality (up to 300 words). when you submit you must also do something else. you may either claim the words, or you may say that you want to delete some of your opponent's words. if you want the words put i want the words at the top and if you want to take the words put take my opponent's words at the top. then when im finished judging these ill tell you how many words you get (up to 100) or how many words youre opponents have lost (up to -100 words). this is going until midnight PST today, so get them in quick.

lol w/e crabrock sux

1 word

lol.

e: ok you want abuse here is some: crabrock is a drunken sack of whiskery flab that squeezes his mental pustules until words come out and we have to read them. he's won a few times because everyone else is terrible, which is nice, but that doesn't mean it matters.

crabrock can't get an erection without killing rats, which is cool b/c gently caress rats don't get me wrong, but he doesn't deserve his words. Take them off him and send them to the rat cemetery, chisel them on the little headstones.

take some of mine too if you like, i don't care. I beat sitting here with 400 words of jokey bullshit i pooped out on my phone. i took 400 words and 45 minutes to beat ACG and djinn so hard they didn't even bother showing up. this is my town, crabbles, you're just passing through. take my advice: keep on walking.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jan 24, 2016

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









thranguy can have 134 of my words, 999 is all i'll need

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Broenheim posted:

and you. god damnit sh stop with this baby poo poo, -100 words to you unless you write some hard hitting poo poo instead of being all "love everyone" and stupid crap like that you baby queen.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Broenheim posted:

sebmojo - 1136 words with 134 given to thranguy

three words going free to anyone

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









deleted

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 2, 2017

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Where is the whistle ref

WHERE IS THE WHISTLE

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









crabrock posted:

pizza party for team mermans when we win.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









ghost crow posted:

I failed my toxx last time I entered because I am a wimp. I don't know how it works or how I report myself for banning so I can redeem myself.

it's been taken care of. make your time and come back soon.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Broenheim posted:

oh hey that's cool i guess, good thing u guys are putting a lot work in as judges trying to help everyone out its just uhhhh


huh

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/critcounts.php?week=180

HUH


but it's alright, youre just following the time honored tradition of being lazy poo poo judges

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/critcounts.php?week=179

i guess the judges had new year resolutions to be loving garbage. great work so far guys.

this post is legit as gently caress.

here's a :toxx: to do full crits (judgeburps and a few line by lines) for the last two weeks I judged, by, ooooh... 8 feb 2359 pst

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Feb 7, 2016

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









I'll take one. You pick.

And take the crits you nonces it's why we're here.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Ironic Twist posted:

And so Domegrassi Week ends as it began: with the salty tears of teenagers.

lol

im judge also unless mr hoban has other ideas

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Titus82 posted:

Count me in. :v:

...

Wait, was I supposed to come up with a word with in in it?

you did

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Boaz-Jachim posted:

Flash rule: Humans have lost the ability to harness heat of any sort, and no one knows why. Fires won't start, the sun no longer warms, and anything using steam or combustion (power plants, motors) no longer works. Your protagonist's motivation is righting a wrong.

:siren: supplementary flash rule :siren: a piece of furniture talks. no one finds this odd or remarkable in any way.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









SOME CRITZ

Week 174

Into the Mineshaft, ZeBourgoisie

There’s a skerrick of worth in the rich sense impressions you correctly lean on, but the story is a succession of random flailings. I like your urbane goblin, for all the world and his motivations make no sense, but the victory is confusing, unearned and lame. Lots of clunky words too.

Selene, Spectres of Autism

Cut the first para is good advice for a reason, my vaporous autismal buddy. do that to this and you skip over the groanworthy OMG WOT IS REAL WHO AM I REALLY opener and into some interesting nicely drawn details about a strange world. Unfortunately those details are all you really have to offer apart from a bit of 16 yo nihilism. A missed opportunity; don’t introduce a character just to have the protagonist shrug at them.

Sugarplum Fairyland etc, Silmarildur

Ooooh god I hated this one a lot. Count how many paras before something actually happens that isn’t just the protagonist gaping at stuff and you chortlingly unfolding your masterful idea of a dream world for diabetics lol. Spoiler, it’s all of them. Your last line is literally your character saying NOTHING IN THIS STORY MATTERED.

Obvious phallic symbol, Muffin

Yes, this is a slab of lol Tdome wacky but your command of the words is such it has its own weird integrity. the old ‘end on a poignant unresolved sense impression’ trick works well here, as does the story for all it’s light as a feather from a baby bird.

Our most illustrious lady of science, Morning Bell

this should be much better than it, in fact, is. I love your plethora of crazy details and the strange world you evoke, and there’s even a gesture at some good stakes… but it all falls flat because I don’t believe in your characters. Your eunuch is too busy describing all the crazy stuff you’ve invented to actually do anything, so his motivation is just a hand wave. And that lol castration ending has no weight because we don’t care about either the lady or the Cardinal.

Rotten at the core, Lazy Beggar

I’ll line by line this one. Briefly it fails super hard because it’s nonsensical and the protagonist isn’t a recognisable human being.

Who ordered that, Thranguy

Lots of cleverness going on here with the names of the attacks, and for all that it’s a rote kung fu fight with a terrrrrible and sort of nonsensical pun to end you basically make it worth the price of admission. Do investigate other forms of poetry than doggerel, though.

Barrel of fun, jon joe

I liked this more than my co-judges, for all that it’s a strange and clunky cross between a child’s fable and a puzzle in a point and click adventure game. You managed to sort of pull it out of the bag at the end with the rat’s turnaround, but only enough to save you from a DM because the rest really didn’t hang together. Remember that when you make a choice like not giving anyone names at the start then you’ll be stuck with that decision, it really didn’t work here.

Emil who climbed the mountain to find his face, Djeser

This was one of my early picks for winner because it does the basics well (goal, motivated protagonist etc) then layers some strange and powerfully compelling images on top (the giant with a face of spider silk is my favourite). It suffers from its length, it feels like you got to the snake thing and then looked at your watch and were all like WELP WRAP UP TIME BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU GOT, FOLKS, SEE U NEXT WEEK. This form of fairy story classically has the people the protag meets along the way helping/hindering the resolution, so maybe that might have helped your ending? Still, not bad.

the gardner, fuschia tude

a dude turns into a tree, the end. Seriously that’s your story. I’m sure there is something you could have done fairly easily to make it a story where someone faces an obstacle to achieve a goal, but instead you just handwave that (e/g he comes back from civilisation and you say ‘it was hard, so he gave up’). Tsk.

for the price of postage, sitting here

This does surreal well by setting up a low opening bid (a funeral for a fern) then topping it with a confident :smuggo: expression with the pile of limbs. It works as a story rather than an assemblage of lolzy details because we get invested in Snighda’s recognisable battle with an annoying world. And it manages to make the cliched yawn of ‘there’s no place like home’ into something surprising and a bit touching.

Joey romaines live house of wax, grizzled patriarch

iirc this DMd because of its failure to even pretend to engage with the prompt. But even ignoring that, this is pretty bad; you’re clearly just writing pretty words waiting for the point to arrive, and then you get to the end and it hasn’t and you’re all RUH ROH scooby doo style but you hit submit anyway. tsk fkn tsk. On the plus side, your words and turns of phrase are top notch, so hug that to your forlorn breast as you rock back and forth gasping ‘whyyyy’ in your single-lightbulb room.

that jerkface moon, kaishai

I thought this crapped all over the meter when i first read it which goes to show i’m maybe not as clever as i think i am b/c it’s actually fine, read it out loud and you’ll see. This is an altogether slicker word apparatus than Thranguy’s piece earlier, but I do think doggerel rhyme is somethign we should move away from, it’s hard to get much more of a rhythm than AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN. You do an ok job of maintaining the kid tone, but the vocab is probably a bit overstuffed with words like nemesis and begrudgingly; it comes off as a slightly stuffy aunt reading a story.

On a sour note, bold frankensteinmir

My favourite part of this is the refrain drift with the lemonade, but it’s only about two thirds done - there’s productive ambiguity and annoying ambiguity and this verges on the latter. but nearly there.

Week 166

Out of Egypt, into the great laugh of mankind, and I shake the snow from my feet as I run.

Long crazy titles is a fine thing and you have a good one here, but when you use a title like this you’re slapping a sassy kind of bet that your story will be strong enough to match it and you don’t make the nut. The world is great, the words are really good, but I think you flub the landing. Lol i’m off for sweet rear end wolf nookie yee ha is not the sort of elegaic ending that i was really looking for in this one; feels like it ended where it should have begun? STill, lots of good words and cool ideas and decently propulsive through line.

Mundane Measures

An interesting concept competently conveyed but with a wet floppy splat of an ending. don’t set up a looming deadline then say AND OFF THEY WENT, THE END. I have no idea as a reader what that means.

DANCE WITH ME.

Has anyone done a good tdome story in interview transcript form, I idly wonder. Can’t be arsed checking but i’m pretty sure the answer’s no. And you certainly didn’t break the mold here with lines like “This interview is being video and tape recorded and is being conducted in an interview room.” That’s your first line, after a title slide that says TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW. You gently caress up basically every rule of story construction you can reach here and make a good start on exhuming Strunk and White so you can piss on them with random paragraph breaks, tense shifts and typos. A deserved loser.

Divided by a Lemniscate

Plonky words and a dull if heartfelt set of characters makes this kind of a chore to read. Show don’t tell is a good rule to at least look at and nod thoughtfully at before you ignore that, fyi.“I just want to be a good Jew, follow the Torah. But I feel that my position in the IDF prevents me from doing so,” sounds to my readerly ears like MOTIVATION MOTIVATION MOTIVATION, OVER. Try coming at things from the side next time.

hell has a beach

Oh God on top of the leaden clunky words you have the clicheeeeeees you got Kowalski and the Sarge and the drat dirty Natzis and bullets and metal hats and the MOVE MOVE MOVE. We have all seen these movies and images like literally thousands of times so if you want to present them please put the most minimal effort into freshening them up. Have the protagonist be, I dunno, a lemur. Maybe it’s a lemur with a bowl of jelly. idk, i’m not the fuckin writer here.

Goodbye Bucharest

This feels like the actual story is happening somewhere else, also that you’ve accidentally written two scenes from an 80s yuppie sex comedy? But the biggest problem is that really nothing actually happens, you have characters who are in a situation and they move to a slightly different situation and nothing is resolved or interesting, which given your (not unintriguing) setup is a pity.

the ethics of parasitism

Okay, this is tight and clever. Noir is all about the way the dry observational details build up into a tower of brutal inevitability, and you hit that real nicely. Last para is superfluous thought, I’d have left it with a nice image (i mean hell you had rain, thunder, lonely mean streets, goddam it they were RIGHT THERE) but still a slick and nicely wrought bit of genre bending.

Sun

Good lord that was a slab of slice of life words that you cut out with your word saw and plonked down on teh table for me to look at uneasily. Things happened, sort of, and your guy met a guy, and there was some bullying i guess and your guy did some things with his friend and then the story stopped right when it was getting even duller so i guess there’s that as a thing to be thankful for.

Control

I liked this one on the first read for teh precision of the detail work and the vividly drawn intensity of Hugo’s emotional force field which is very properly refracted into everything around him (eg the great description of the phone). And because of that, when he makes his play, it lands and we care. Yes, this is good work.

my brother among the dunes

Some interesting potential squandered here by ending up with such a weak punch. Why not have them actually do or achieve something, just throwing it out there. The spacey brother is also faintly retarded so it’s a little hard to see what beefy bro gets out of the deal in maintaining his illusions no offence to our retarded brethren they’re actually pretty cool imo.

Life is a Four-Dimensional Vector Moving Towards the Future

Ah yes, being 15 and getting high for the first time i remember it with great fondness. Next time use that fine herb to write me a story cheers thanks a lot.

When the epigraph is from the story

As i recall my co-judges weren’t big on this one but i think it has a good nasty punch with the perspective change at the end, though it leaves it maybe a litttle too hanging. Make your characters act, surprise yourself with them.

the Soldier

I liked the hell out of this, particularly its pitch perfect voice and rhythm and compelling command of it’s little cast of characters that could easily slur into cliche. It also has the neat trick of being exactly as long as it needs to be to tell the story it needs to tell. nice work.

The clock strikes midnight

Ha, this is great. ICBMs eating vol au vents is such a kerrrrazzzyyyy idea that it could easily be over broad, but there’s a nice attention to making it all make sense within its own strange terms, and you do a really effective job of making the character such that it choosing not to blow up (half of) a city is a genuine and meaningful choice that is a bit heartwarming. And ‘his mind dissolving into his plutonium soul’ is a good phrase.

For lack of trying

Hrmmmm. So you give pretty good lovecraft in this, and i like the sense of building doom, and his ending is nicely turned, but I’m not sure if i should grumble at you for copping out on the ending. I feel like I’m missing something with the title and the first line about his diagnosis? To be clear, there’s an excellent story that those two things could work together to deliver given the very solid framework you’ve made for them, but i’m not sure this is it.

the cost of existence

this is basically one of those berzerk 1970s scifi paperback covers in story form with weird names and the clunky faintly autistic characters and plethora of glowing primary colours in place of interesting motivations.

love lies bleeding

this makes me think of Love is Blindness by TV’s famous U2 which has a killer guitar solo and is all around a great track i’m sure you’ll agree. It’s a sweet and nasty piece of work as much for what it doesn’t say as for what it does, and unlike a bunch of the stories in this week it’s exactly the right length and comes in and out just where it needs to. Lovely words, also, and perfect choice of details.

Lattice

this is an emotion as much as a story, and as such it works well. I remember thinking at the time that the on ramp of the story is a little cluttered by the details you choose to tell us, though not in a particularly bad way. But then this hits its mark and detaches itself like a little story balloon and floats its way back to the ether, leaving just the right combination of pain and regret and relief you wanted. gj.

As the crows fly

A sterling slab of Cherryh-esque words you have here, and like CJ you make action real by not purpling poo poo up beyond the actions’ ability to take it. I confess I didn’t feel the weight of the final para - it’s a corker bit of monster-slaying but it doesn’t quite have the emotional heft that the ending appears to think it does. Very nice work though.

A fever of thyself

Now as you may or may not know i am gay to a robust ISO 9000 level standard for Italo Calvino and this is a verrry calvino little snippet you have here. So i am therefore obliged to love it; and i do. The final image of the house dwarfed by the expansions is killer, but i think you dropped the ball on your last line. use your last line to give the story a twist of a few degrees, either into a new understanding or to skew the understanding the reader thought they had.

Personal Saviour

heyyyyy this is cyberpunk now that is what u might call my jam so u had better make sure you keep it….

legit…

haha ok that’s great your character just decided to not get in a mexican standoff with yourself, normally i frown on telling us what characters didn’t do but i guess i just found my first exception. You did pretty good, for all that it’s basically Eclipse Phase fanfic but the ending pancakes. Don’t give us a cool cyberpunk story then end it with a TO BE CONTINUED DOTDOTDOT from an NPC, especially when your relationship between your character had such nice energy.

leaving
‘I tap at the keyboard in front of me. No response - the website's loading icon refuses to resume twirling.’ Don’t ever start a story like that again, cheers. but that aside, this actually does quite well with its clotted goony protagonist. Nothing much happens, and we all know the people involved so there’s nothing much new there, but I like the agonised suspension of the ending.

The first time always hurts

This is a vaporous puff of basically nothing. Guy wants to die, is vaguely peeved about it, the end.

Renege

this is like the perfect paradigmatic example of a story ending where is should begin, it belongs in the museum. or at least it would be if the guy didn’t die (which I guess was something to do with the cooling off period…? idk/c)

the magician’s pupil

cute, if extremely predictable. very anime (which is bad)

taste test

also cute, also predictable. also very anime (which is good)

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Feb 8, 2016

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

i dont crabrock is a butt

yeah he mainly just farts like when you're reading his stories you're huffing up buttgas

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









prompt me up beardo

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Djeser posted:

No one will be upset if you use both well, but if you clearly tried to cram two stories worth of ideas into one story and don't do either one justice, then people are going to be upset.

As a rule of thumb, if you can pull it off, you'll get away with just about anything.

don't ask permission for things act as you see fit and deal with the consequences.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Mar 5, 2016

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Meis posted:

Do not butt my buttting. I'll butt as buttly as i butt

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:siren:The autismal flerpings of yesteryear brawl:siren:

Prompt: "There never was a golden age"

750 words, due 12 March 2359 PST, toxx up

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









In with a :toxx:

E: link the loser in your goddam judge posts you loving mongoloids

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Mar 8, 2016

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









deleted

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Jan 2, 2017

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









newtestleper posted:

where is sittinghere's story

that's an excellent question

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









anime was right posted:

the order of judgment is home to three powerful thrones and in them sits: anime was right, sparksbloom

and me

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









:siren: Bonus words: :siren:say how many you want and you'll get a picture that has to play some part in your story.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Benny Profane posted:

I want one extra word.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









flerp posted:

S P E C T R E S B R A W L

749 words

Potatoes Aren’t Like Gold at All

A god was very cross one morning. this is a real bad opener, it's vague and jokey and not funny in a way that could make up for it; you've barely got any characters in your story, why not give the god a name, ffs He called down from the heaven, his voice booming and heavy, and I hear TENSES BITCH them WHAT when I was in the field. I dropped my potato and it landed deep into the dirt.

“Where are the sacrifices?” the voice from the sky asked. so is this what he called down from teh heavens? did it happen before or after the potato?

The sunlight strengthened and gave the potatoes a golden gleam. I picked one up, and put it up in the air. im picturing him just leaving it in the air like putting it on the mantlepiece or w/e “Does this work?”

“Do not play with me mortal. cliche, dumb One mere potato will not be enough.”

I grabbed another potato and lifted it up. The heat seeped through my shirt. bad verb choice

“Neither will two,” the voice said, his voice strained and annoyed.

I put the potatoes into my sack and asked “Well then, how do many you want?”

“I don’t want potatoes!”

“Well, it’s all I got.” I reached down and grabbed the potato I dropped and wiped some of the dirt off it. Most people didn’t appreciate my potatoes. this dude is all herpy derpy about god talking to him which means i really don't care either fyi

“Talk to your elders. We demand reverence.” is it one voice or more, you keep changing your mind

I scratched my head. “That seems like a hassle.”

“Do it, or your potatoes will not grow this season. Or any season.”

I looked down towards the ground. All the potatoes shrunk into the ground like an army of moles had grabbed a hold of them. is shrunk the right word here? My field was empty and I held my potato sack deep to my chest.

“Ok, ok, I’ll do it.” SLUDGE WORDS i'm real bored right now just so you know transparency in judging is important

# haha yeah let's just skip over the potentially interesting drama of actually getting into this meeting because this story is already redlining the thrillometer yes

“Mortals! I have control over the winds, over everything. Listen to me!” the voice boomed in the conference hall, but all the suited men were just staring at me.

“I, uh, i hate this construction, it's a cliche recipe for soggy dialogue don’t think they can hear you,” I whispered to him. The mayor shifted and glared at me, thinking I was whispering to myself. I didn’t think explaining to him that I was talking to a god would make me any more sane looking.

“Then you shall act as my envoy. Tell them I demand a sacrifice.”

“What’s that specifically?” WIFFLE

“Sir,” one of the men said, “Can you please leave? This is a private meeting.”

“I demand gold.”

“Sir, if you don’t leave, we’re going to have get security.”

“That’s a bit…” I started. WAFFLE

“Now, or the potatoes are gone!” YOU ALREADY SAID THIS

I held my breath and looked out over the board room table. People were shifting in their seats, some biting down nervously on their fingernails. WHY YOU JUST SAID THEY THINK HE'S A WEIRDO WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE ANYWAY

“Ummm, I’m here for uhhh, gold.”

A couple of them blinked rapidly, ADVERB CHECK FAIL GLOCK TO THE HEAD BAMBAM then there was a shuffle A WHAT as people oh people, yes i do love those well described girls and/or guys leaned in next to each other. One guy in the back pulled out his phone and rushed WHAT to dial something. THAT WAS A REALLY BAD PARA

“Sir, we’ll get you all the gold you want,” he who, teh dialling guy? so he's talking and rushing to dial and nervously grabbing? said, nervously grabbing at his shirt. “Just, wait here for a bit.”

“Yes!” the voice boomed. “Penance! Finally, some respect for us.”

I tried to smile, DO OR DO NOT BITCH, DON'T TELL ME WHAT YOU ALMOST DID but the door slammed open and a security guard reached over and grabbed my wrist tight. “Let’s go,” he said, jerking me hard out of the room. do security guards really grab people by the wrist like parents with errant toddlers? this action all reads really badly. If you'd put a tiny bit of effort into painting a scene and given me a character or two it might have been interesting, but as it is I super don't care about anything you're telling me right now.

“No, let him go. Bring me my gold!” the voiced echoed in the room and I gave me a splitting CLICHEEEEEEEEEE headache.

#

“We must go back,” The NO CAPITAL voice said.

“Look,” I said, sitting over the edge of the sidewalk outside city hall. “I don’t think they’re going to listen to me.”

“But, the potatoes, everything will stop growing!” THANKS FOR REMINDING ME CHEERS

“Well, most of our food is imported.” I rubbed my butt, sore from being thrown out.

“Then I’ll stop growing all the food in the world.”

“They still won’t listen to me. They’ll just call it like global warming or something.”

The voice was silent for a while and it was nice not having a deep and heavy voice ringing in my ear.

“I just miss having all that gold,” he said finally, but his voice was quieter and soft.

“I’m sorry,” I said and it was kind of true. this sentence is ok

“I just wanted a beautiful pile of shimmering gold on a sunny day.”

I remembered how my potatoes looked this morning. It was a bit of a stretch, but ; they looked a bit like gold, at least to me.

“Well, I can’t really give you gold, but I got some potatoes.”

“Mortal, you are very stupid,” he said, then he paused. “No one ever gave me gold,” he said finally.

“Huh?”

“If I killed them all, then how could they give me gold?” this is a non sequitur

#

I stacked up all the potatoes into a big mound. The sun was setting, and they didn’t look anything like gold, but it was good enough. what a dribbly wet pile of shart effluvia to end with. This was a zero effort poop of a story that has no characters, a dumb plot, is laden down waffle and bland soggy dialogue. it was super duper bad, and I hope you die (at some point in the future after a long, eventful and enjoyable life, surrounded by your friends and loved ones).

spectres of autism posted:

f l e r p b r a w l

Black Rose
750 words

“Dropped,” Lilith says, “like a bad habit.”

“You are a bad habit,” Inanna said. TENSSSSSEEESSSSSS this is a nice bit of dialogue. no scene setting, but I want to know what happens next

“Wrong,” Lilith says. “I mean, I don’t know. I think I’m good for people, just misunderstood.”

Inanna doesn’t say anything then, because she’s too busy growing. Her tendrils are already burrowing under Lillith’s feet, helping her keep her balance, but as Lilith watches she sees them burst through the ground, a cobweb of roots, a protective canopy. God is beginning his bombardment, a hardcore meteor shower, and she knows that it’s Adam at the pulse of everything. Neat images, but I'm milllldly baffled by the world you're giving me - I trust it's the sort of thing a quick google of mesopotamian fertility goddesses will clear up

“My roots are strong,” Inanna says, “but my branches are weak. You can’t stay here forever.”

“I just need a bit longer,” Lilith says. “I’m homeless now.”

But the meteors are falling. They crash into the sap-hardened tendrils, scraping off to plummet into the void, leaving Inanna’s bark scorched, blackened. Inanna grits her teeth, so hard that Lilith can hear it. this is a cliche being used well

“Okay,” Lilith sys. typo “I’ll go. I'm not toxic, though.” She waits for a sympathetic smile. this is a nice, economical character moment

Nothing comes. Instead, as meteors smash into the slowly collapsing folds, the tendrils behind Lilith curl open. Lilith stares at Inanna’s teeth, shades of frosted glass, closes her eyes, and falls backward into space.



So Adam climbs further and further away. puzzled by this

His choice, Lilith thinks. But it doesn’t need to define me. I’m stronger than he thinks I am. I don’t need him.

And she falls towards Tartarus, his black smoke spilling forth, his shadows massing to catch her, enfold her, and float her down towards him. If Adam tries to follow me here, Lilith thinks, then he truly is evil, and he’s wrong, not me. I’ve done all I can. She thinks this as Tartarus begins to speak, and in order to hear him Lilith needs to freeze, to trance out, and then the speech fills her head and there’s nothing but his speech and the void, and when his speech is gone there will only be the void. So Lilith listens.

She’s been there before. She knows that already. She zones out when Tartarus tells her how many times it’s been. She gets the gist. She leaves, comes back. Leaves, comes back. It’s her fault. It isn’t her fault. She needs to listen. She needs to assert herself.

But, Lilith thinks, I know who I am. Objectively I’m the first, and I’m sent away. Read the arc, it’s all there. I can only be the problem, and nothing else.

She thinks this, and her thoughts radiate out into nothingness, are nothingness. It all blurs together, and she’s just with Tartarus, and he settles into a rhythm. His words are slow, measured, and she gets it. He’s getting more and more descriptive, fleshing her out a bit, and then she sees her name and jumps on it, floats away on it, and she’s herself again, zooming through time, watching as Adam spreads his lame seed. The seed radiates outwards, into space, hits the edges of the fabric, and then collapses back, and it’s just her and Adam again. He’s clutching his side in that familiar way, and he looks like he’s about to blame her for something. hrrmmm i think your abstractions are maybe a couple of layers to deep for me to care. you could probably have got away with it if you'd channeled it through nice character work like with inana.

So before he can she rockets away, hair streaming behind her, igniting the air. She twists and turns and scampers. When she looks she sees him following, so she stops looking. Then she’s found a crescent shaped depression in the ground and she falls into it, and then all she can hear is her breathing. Then all she can hear is her heartbeat.

After a while she stands up, shakes off the leaves, and looks for the caves. your words are pretty good throughout this, profoundly weird ideas conveyed through clean simple language



The caves of paradise are only there when you look for them. Otherwise they’d add a bit of darkness to your day that maybe you weren’t ready for. But Lilith needs them now. So she steps into the maw, overgrown with moss so that it blends with the rest of the landscape.

gently caress off, Tartarus, she thinks, but he isn’t there. It’s just her, by herself. naw, tartarus is a dropped ball, don't know/care about him and i really should if this is going to hang

What is Adam doing now, she asks herself. Is he already bitching to God? This one didn’t work out, get me another. And while you’re at it, sweep her away, because I don’t even want to remember her.

But, she thinks, it’s because I terrify him. In the end, you’re terrified of what you create. And his mistake was never creating anything with me. Because I have nothing to be scared of.

One day, she thinks, I’ll write God out. hmmmmmm okay so this fails, to be clear, because it's too short and too weird to hold the cosmic ideas its grappling with, but it's an interesting and worthwhile kind of failure, and I really like the cool style with touches of colour you've got going on.

:siren:JUDGMENT:siren:

Neither of these were good stories, but one of them had good solid words, some interesting character work and an impressive ambition, the other was a marshy bubble of poop gas. Spectres wins, knock out.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Mojo still hasn't posted crit from that brawl that StealthArcher bitched out on like six months ago, so don't hold your breath.

quote:

The Twilight Zoned i don't get this title

Jimmy hated Maine. It was too cold, and too woody, and too drat backwards-rear end for its own good. Driving a day or so up the coast from Boston was like going into a new country. Even Nantucket was better than Maine, and that was saying a lot. Nantucket had decent WiFi. His GPS was totally lost, and so was he.

The trunk of his car was packed with thousands of dollars in fine Quebecoise weed. It was ridiculous stuff – worked like straight-laced 50s TV men had tried to spin it. Must’ve been treated with some kinda Russian synthetic poo poo. Turned the whole world into a carnival. If they’d had crazyass Quebecoise weed in the 60s, Woodstock would’ve had a whole lot more of a Reefer Madness feel to it. In a good way, though.

tThere once was a man from Nantucket,” said a voice. Jimmy drat near jumped out of his skin. cliche His muscles went tight and tore the steering wheel to the left, almost taking him off the road. He slammed the brake with both feet. The car fishtailed all over the icy road, then spun to a stop.

The man in the back seat wore a white suit. He had two short horns sticking out of his forehead. His hair was short, and so blonde it was almost white. He was smoking a blunt with a look of obvious pleasure on his face. this is a real clunky line

“Ahem,” he said, “it’s rude to stare.”

He pulled the brim of his white top-hat down over his horns.

“So uh,” said Jimmy, “are you the devil?” you wasted an opportunity to convey character here

“Yup,” said Satan. He took another puff, then grinned a too-big Cheshire Cat cliche grin. “This is some good poo poo. Anyway, you didn’t let me finish.”

He leaned back, then cracked his knuckles. He had pianist’s hands, with long, lean fingers. They cracked too loudly for such pretty things. nice line The Devil began to sing in a pleasant, lilting baritone. cliche (feels like)

“There once was a man from Nantucket
Who ruined his whole life -- he hosed it!
he murdered his wife
with a razor-sharp knife
when she came back, she told him to suck it.” that's quite a bad limerick

He spread his hands wide, then inclined his head forward just an inch, as if he were too modest to smile and too proud to bow. Jimmy didn’t know how to respond, so he clapped. The Devil screwed up his face. bland blocking

You’re not going to beg for mercy?” said Lucifer, Lord of Lies.

Jimmy shrugged. “Nope,” he said. “I liked it. I don’t get why she came back though. And what did she tell him to suck? That’s not very clear.”

He wanted to be helpful. The devil seemed alright.

“She’s a zombie and she eats him,” said the Devil. “Also, he’s you. WHOA [b]SPOILER [/b]That’s what I do – I punish sinners for their crimes but first I tell a little poem about it. It’s traditional, you know?”

“I’m not married,” said Jimmy. There was a lady who worked at the hotel IBIS in Bangor who he liked a lot but he was too scared to talk to her. That was as close to love as he got. Satan’s face fell. CLICHE

“You’re Jimmy Schmidt, though? Jimmy Schmidt of Nantucket, Massachusetts? Guy who owns a car shop?”

Jimmy groaned. Not again. i feel like you're squandering a good premise with some verrry bland and mediocre execution “I work at an ice cream place,” he said. “People keep asking me if I’m related to that guy but I’ve never met him. It’s not really a rare name.”

A bloody palm slammed against the car’s window, and Jimmy screamed. this was unclearly described, I'd have put a bit more effort into it not just 'a bloody palm' The Devil sighed, and waved it away. He cracked the window, then poked his head out into the frigid air. “Wrong guy, Nancy,” he said. “Sorry about this. I’ve got a new phone, you know? It’s hard to use. We’ll have you doing the whole revenant fury thing ASAP. Just sit tight.”

“Did you do anything really terrible that I can do a poem about?” said Beelzebub, Lord of the Pit. “Like, do you steal jewelry from senile old ladies by pretending to be their son? That would be pretty evil. I mean I gotta punish you for something or I’ll be hearing about it from upstairs.”

He took out his phone and glared at it. Jimmy felt sorry for him: a very old man adrift in a changing world. OOF I JUST GOT HIT AMIDSHIPS BY THE POINT, CAPN WE'RE TAKIN ON SIGNIFICANCE FAST

“Nope,” said Jimmy. He wanted to be helpful. Jimmy was not a smart man.who's actually describing this story plz

“I stay in a lot of motels,” he said, “and I take their pens sometimes. haha I mean, I’m smuggling weed across the border but who isn’t these days? That’s what Canada is there for.”

The Devil screwed up his face. he did that before you lazy rear end in a top hat it wasn't interesting the first time either He took another hit of the joint, then put it out on the car-seat. After a few moments staring out the window, he clicked his tongue. “Good enough,” he said, then he began to sing.

“there once was a smuggler of weed
whose heart was a bastion of greed
his life went to pot
when his keys he forgot
and his whole life went rather to seed.” another bad limerick

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Jimmy. “I’ve got my keys right h-”

The blacktop writhed and cracked beneath them, then a monstrous sativa plant burst up through the ground. Its stalks were thicker than Jimmy’s arms, and its leaves were the size of soup plates. Its buds were bigger than Jimmy’s head. It wrapped around the car, and the metal screamed in protest. The windows all shattered at once, pelting Jimmy with broken glass. lol left field which is weird when you consider the zombie/devil angle, but it actually is, this seems super out of character with this Kind of Story which generally relies on devilish coincidence and people being brought low by their own failings

Stalks invaded the car. Jimmy was about to make a hentai joke nope, if the character doesn't care then the reader doesn't care when the first one rammed itself down his throat. He clawed at it, but it was alive, and strong. weird word choice Another wrapped around his waist, and squeezed. Four sharp gunshot-cracks rang out, and pain blossomed in Jimmy’s ribcage.

The last thing he heard before the life was crushed from him was the Devil saying “SIRI, Jimmy Schmidt.”

“Do You Want To Call Jeremy Schmidt?”

“No, I said – ugh gently caress it. I’ll do it tomorrow.” bad joke, poorly executed. which sums up this story. I'd have given you this brawl at a walk (if stealth archer had bothered to show, but he would have had to be pretty bad to not beat this.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Julias posted:

First off, my story for Week 188

715 Words

September Selves

Smoldering ashes from rustic fireplaces tinge the midnight air. cool Autumn leaves drift off their resting branches, being cradled by the breeze, into the loamy soil. fascinating, loamy is literally my favourite kind of soil The clouded atmosphere casts shadows of illusory beasts onto the lake’s surface, intermingling with the shapes of real creatures that lie beneath. oh, neat i love that particular kind of cloudy atmosphere

Above the surface, the only remarkable feature wow! was a wooden craft, oh plastered with emblems of the Rabul Kingdom, AW poo poo YEAH THE RABUL KINGDOM only half-visible through the layers of mud and moss. Two gaunt figures were sitting of the edge of the boat, one on the bow, the other on the stern. Though they faced apart, both men were concentrating deeply on their task. I am completely invested in these two undescribed men who have not yet done anything except think really hard

The inside of the boat seemed fairly standard. cool, good to get the chandlering sorted out and to know it's all in orderBoth the port and starboard were lined with oars, nets, and harpoons - interesting - why on earth would they have all that stuff on a boat of all places? the usual equipment for fishing, oh, i see and there was a black chest bolted !!! to the center of the ship. Indeed, indeed! each of the men wielded a fishing rod, cast off into the depths beneath them. ahhhhhh tehy are fishing thank u that clears up so loving much

Fishing good reiteration here, just to remove the doubt was not only a hobby, but a traditional pastime among the citizens of Rabul. nice reincorporation! the fishermen of Rabul are probably legendary The Tobias brothers have tense, tsk been fishing since they could hold a rod. phwooarrrr? (not sure if rude) Eager to make their parents happy, they made it a competition to catch the most fish, or perhaps the biggest fish, on each of their ventures to the lake. (im just gonna break character for a moment to say this is maybe the clunkiest way this sentiment has been or could have ever been expressed in all the long ages of man)

Though they may have tense, tsk grown up, both brothers still harbored a deep passion for the sport, and have spent countless nights aboard various ships, passing the time away. this sentence is phenomenally dynamic Normally, the nights would pass on by quickly, but tonight the minutes seemed like hours. oh, no but it's fascinating when two undescribed people sit at either end of a boat not doing anything Storm clouds began to metastasize across the healthy night sky tight metaphor, and soon only a few rays of light pierced through the heavenly awning. Like a dilapidated roof, rain began to drip through the awning, startling the people that were unfortunate enough to live underneath it. given they are living beneath a vast curtain of cancer, this seems an understatement

Both brothers sighed, and each abandoned their HIS YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE GENDER NEUTRAL THEY ARE BOTH MEN post to find some tarp buried beneath their provisions. Instead of their usual jovial attitude, discussing about their catches (with both fish and women), they merely cursed at their bad luck. After tearing apart some sheets and wrapping themselves in it, they sulked back to the port and starboard, unsurprised that no fish and taken their bait. i'm honestly losing my spirit for jolly mockery here, so far you have achingly scrabbled your way to an opening scene that could be described in a line, say 'The two brothers looked sulkily at the rain spattered water, fishing rods idle by their side.' WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME WRITE YOUR STORY I HATE YOU

The vessel bobbed on the rippling waves, growing more violent as the sky darkened. Soon the rain doused the duo. Their ambition was to go fishing, oh is that waht tey are doing why did not you say so but at this rate the only thing that they were likely to catch was illness. lol nice pun (play on wodrs)None of the fish were biting today, and there were not even any other vessels on the lake. Despite this, the brothers stayed adamant in maintaining their post.

Soon the wind began to intensify. The dilapidated awning was falling apart, and streams of moonlight and water began to strike the boat. The chilling air cut through the tarp, and the two brothers began to ache. Teeth chattering, they both backed up to the black chest, and sat on top of it, back to back, staring out into the tempest that was consuming them.

Jeremiah grabbed Michael’s hands, and squeezed them tightly. Bound to his younger brother, Michael reassured him by singing for him the same lullaby that their parents would sing when they had trouble sleeping as children:

“Unless you wish to take a
Come here and hold out your own hand
There is no glory, there is no pain
Crying out for the already slain.”

Only this time, the brother knew they had to stand through this terror, less they risk losing it all.

***

Another quiet night cycles on by, with no appearance of the Terror. Now that day will tense, tsk break soon, the brothers can return home and recover tense, tsk from their ordeal. They both sighed in relief, never having to crack open the black flare chest, never having to strike against a real monster. It has been generations since the Terror overcame Rabul. The horrors that plagued their ancestors have tesne, tsk now become faint memories, a distant dream that is now a myth. Jeremiah and Michael remembered their vows to take a stand, and to always watch out for the children of the Rabul Kingdom, just as real to them as the oncoming Terror that would shatter this peace one day. And that was the most terrifying thought to both of them.
lol gently caress youuu don't spring some bullshit monster twist on me goddammit this is nonsensical

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Carl Killer Miller posted:

Hey, any of you serious thunderdome winners want to help out with this poo poo? I've got this collection of opening or theme-setting statements from some past thunderdome champs and they loving suck. My own writing is garbage too, but who enjoys this?:


This story got rave reviews. The protagonists are planning on going to U of T as adult human beings, at the age of 18, with unmanageable alfalfa cowlicks and sneakers that are so bad that they literally cause 'woe'. #1 story.


Opening sentence for an honorable mention that almost took the week. The story opens with a guy having god-acid reflux and his friend Joey deciding to fix it with a big ol hug. Joey hugs his way all over that story!


That last one (per the head judge) won by a very, very wide margin even though it went on in a similar way for another thousand words. It is a story in words that is more boring than the same number of characters in morse code.



I've gotten some great crits for my terrible writing, but why does this poo poo win consistently? I've read the judge descriptions for each individual win, but they are vague.

It's because we're all terrible FYI

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sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Sitting Here posted:

The best thing to do, if you think a story did something lovely, is rage crit it so hard it leaves marks.

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