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anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Sitting Here posted:

Prompt will be up in ~6 hours, until then feel free to poo poo up the thread with gifs for me to ignore

id poo poo it up with words but yall did that for me

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anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
*is ejected directly into the toilet dimension*

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Djeser posted:

Thunderdome would be easier if we all just had two hours from signup to write because we all do it last minute anyway lmao

says you

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
also, in.

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Sitting Here posted:

:siren: signups closed :siren:

hosed the heck up

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
Not Quite Friends (2,115 words)

Lark Wilder climbed on the fence and wrapped her elbows over the pointed ends of the wooden posts to hold herself up. The bit of field before her was mostly dirt except for a lone tree, defiantly standing alone in the otherwise dead looking ground. It was tall in the same way giants were, and looked older than any tree she’d ever seen. In front of it was a young boy named Zhao Kong.

Zhao Kong came from Northern nobility, the stubborn sort that would walk with two broken legs and tell you nothing was wrong. His cold face dripped with hot sweat and he squinted tightly to avoid the sun in his eyes. He struggled to stand with the weight that held down his shoulders. His knees shook, looking to buckle. With quiet ambition he held up a wooden bar, and off it hung two buckets filled with water. The dirt beneath him was absolutely dry as he did his best to keep them from falling.

Lark hopped over the fence and walked towards Zhao, but he turned his head further away from her the closer she got. As soon as she was within arm’s reach, he spoke out of the opposite side of his mouth.

“Go away,” said Zhao.

“You’re going to be my friend,” said Lark.

“No. I’m not.”

“Of course you are!”

Zhao grunted and looked towards her. His face wrinkled and bunched up near the top of his nose as he looked more and more like he was going to drop the two buckets of water. The shaking in his knees moved up into his stomach, and then to his shoulders, and then into his arms. Even his fingers shook a little. He clenched his teeth and sealed his mouth tighter than before.

Lark didn’t understand him. Why he didn’t want to be her friend. Why not understand what he’s thinking?

“Why are you holding those buckets up?” asked Lark.

“I hit someone,” said Zhao. “Will you leave now?”

“Okay. But only if you tell me who is making you do this.” said Lark.

“Sir Telmorris,” said Zhao. “Leave.”

Lark walked towards the edge of the yard and unlocked the gate from the inside. She wasn’t sure whose yard it was, honestly. Just that the other kids had seen Zhao over here, struggling to hold up two buckets of water. She made her way closer to the center of knight’s village where she came towards a small house. It almost looked like a silo, it was round and made of brick the color of a calm gray sky. Small little vines had started creeping up the sides of it, but came just short of the simple wooden windows. Lark moved up to it, adjusted her shirt and fussed up her hair before she knocked on the door.

The man that answered was Sir Telmorris. A man with a shovel-like jaw and the hint of a mighty beard cut short by the knife. He was tall, too, but his body was filled out well enough that Lark thought he might have just been a regular sized person from a further distance out. Even in a simple shirt with the top and only two buttons undone at the collar, his strength showed clear. When she looked up unto his eyes, they blocked her from looking inward. This was a man who could properly hide even the deepest sadness or most powerful of rage, she thought.

She didn’t like him.

“I don’t want any flowers,” said Telmorris. “Or whatever it is you’re selling.”

He started to close the door, and Lark walked in between it and the doorway, stopping it from closing all of the way.

“Why is Zhao in that yard holding buckets up?”

“He hit Druck,” said Telmorris. “No one hits my students outside of a duel or practice. Got that?”

“Who started it?” asked Lark.

“Excuse me?” said Telmorris. Maybe he didn’t hide rage as well as Lark thought. The way he whipped around was quicker than she would have expected him to.

“Who started the fight? Druck or Zhao?” asked Lark.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It does, actually.”

Telmorris glared at her and then shoved her outside. When the door slammed, Lark closed her eyes, thinking it was going to hit her right in the nose. When she opened them, the door was a blade’s edge away from her face.

Lark looked towards the small yard he had and spotted two wooden buckets and a long staff.

She knocked on the door again, but the only response she received was a distant grunt.

Lark walked into his yard. She had to push aside an old oak crate and some riding gear that he left outside, before she managed to pull the two buckets out of the small pile of stuff. The staff was easy to carry. She made her way down towards the yard where Zhao was. She made sure the gate was still open, and gave Zhao a quick smile as he struggled to ignore her. There was a well not far from here, and after filling each bucket with water, she carried each one to the gate before Zhao noticed her.

She placed both buckets next to him and hooked the staff underneath the small metal handles and lifted it up and over her shoulders, before letting it rest. With bent knees, she copied Zhao’s posture as best she could before holding still.

After one minute her knees felt sore. After two, her thighs joined in. After five minutes she wobbled back and forth. Zhao, at this point, couldn’t ignore her, but with how red his face was, his words were hurried and weak.

“Did Druck punch you?” asked Lark.

“Excuse me?” asked Zhao.

“I want to know if Druck punched you first, or you punched him first.”

“Druck, he punched me, so I punched him back. Telmorris took his side.”

“I bet it’s hard to think like this, I bet that’s why you won’t talk to me,” said Lark. She wobbled to the right, away from Zhao, before catching her balance. “How long do you have to do this?”

“Until nightfall.”

Lark tried her best to keep her buckets up. At first she spread her legs and squatted a little further. Eventually she teetered the weight from one side to another. Eventually she twisted and tumbled and fell over next to Zhao. The water splashed out and onto the thirty earth which absorbed it all within the minute, leaving only dark spots besides the turned over buckets.

Lark sat next to Zhao and looked up at him. Then she sat against the tree and looked up into it. When the sun started to set, she walked back over to Zhao. He still held his buckets up, his body struggling intensely under the weight.

“Think he’ll be back soon?” asked Lark.

Zhao nodded his head. It looked almost bloated from how red it was, it resembled a ripe tomato.

Lark sat a little longer and watched the sun set with a smile. The moon, once barely visible in the evening sky, became a bright white circle beaming down on them. Lark looked at it for a little while, she was hungry, and she hurried off and found a baker tossing their unused bread away at anyone that would buy it for a steep discount. She hurried back and broke off half, and started to eat it in front of Zhao. She stepped closer to him and put the other half of the loaf close to his mouth, but he turned his head away.

“Aren’t you hungry?” asked Lark.

“Not allowed to eat,” said Zhao.

“You’re really determined.”

Zhao stopped talking.

The deeper parts of night left Lark with a chill she could no longer ignore. Even as she pulled her clothes tighter around her frame, she felt the cold breath through to her skin. As she folded her arms in front of her, she tried feeding Zhao the staling bread, but when he turned his head again, she ate it instead. Eventually she grew tired, and after fighting back a yawn, she walked back to Telmorris’ house, only a few minutes away.

At this point she wondered if Zhao had given up. She couldn’t imagine him lasting any longer, but she waited for Telmorris anyway, wondering just what was keeping him.

Telmorris answered in loose clothes and a tall cap. He yawned and stared at Lark with tight eyes.

“What are you doing here?” asked Telmorris.

“Zhao is waiting for you to come back,” said Lark.

“He can go home. I don’t care.”

“He’s really stubborn, you know.”

“I know. I want him to realize that he has to learn to give up sometimes. Why do you think that fight started?”

“He’s not going to give up. You know that, don’t you?”

Telmorris slammed the door in her face.

Frustrated, Lark walked back to Zhao, thankfully the fence was still unlocked. In the moonlight, the tree looked prettier with every gentle breeze. The way the leaves rustled sounded pleasing. It was the sort of sound she’d lay in bed and focus on if she wanted to fall asleep with gentle haste. Zhao’s ability to stand with the weight of both buckets on his shoulders seemed unreal. The way he wobbled back and forth and caught himself seemed almost like an animalistic instinct, the sort that lets a cat always fall on its paws.

“He’s not coming back, you know,” said Lark. “Do you need anything?

“I don’t care,” said Zhao.

“Okay,” said Lark.

Lark grabbed both of the buckets she borrowed and took them to the well and filled them up, then carried them all the way to Telmorris’ house. Her arms felt like they were going to fall out of her shoulders by the time she made it all the way back. With a bucket at each side of her feet, she knocked on the door.

Telmorris opened it with a stony face.

Lark lifted one bucket and splashed the water onto Telmorris.

Telmorris’ face transformed. At first it was shock, and then, as he woke up a little, it became shame, which slowly twisted into a tight anger. Just as he raised his finger and opened his mouth to yell at Lark, she emptied the second bucket onto him. Water completely soaked his pajamas, and he kept bouncing back between trying to say something and clenching his jaw tightly. Telmorris slammed the door in Lark’s face, but she waited a moment as she heard the shuffle of drawers opening and gentle steps. A moment later, the door swung open again. Telmorris was fully clothed.

“I borrowed your buckets, I thought I should bring them back,” said Lark with a smile.

She knew he was angry, and she wanted to giggle and tease him, but thought better of it.

Telmorris snapped his hand forward and grabbed Lark by the wrist, practically dragging her to the field. When he walked through the gate, he slammed it closed behind him, and it bounced back on its hinge a couple of times before settling at just slightly open. The loud noise roused a couple of cats and silenced a few dozen crickets.

Lark stood next to Telmorris and looked at Zhao. At this point she thought he was dead, and his soul somehow managed to prop his body up despite his passing. But Zhao raised his head slightly with blood-red eyes and a hoarse voice.

“What?” asked Zhao.

“I’m back. Have you learned your lesson?” asked Telmorris.

“No. What have you taught me?” asked Zhao.

“Nothing,” said Telmorris.

“That’s right. I’ve learned nothing. You were never going to come back, were you?”

“No. I wanted you to give up.”

“I never,” said Zhao. His face went almost blank, and then he fell forward as the two buckets toppled over and splashed water near his feet. Zhao looked directly at the dirt, opened his mouth, spat out a few sandy grains of the dryness beneath him, and spoke directly towards the center of the earth.

“I never give up,” said Zhao.

Telmorris grumbled and tossed Zhao over his shoulder as the three of them walked back to the barracks. As they did, Lark trailed behind and looked up into Zhao’s eyes with a big smile on her face.

“Are we friends now?” asked Lark.

“Maybe,” said Zhao. “Let me sleep first. You’re not like those buckets, you know.”

“How’s that?” asked Lark.

“You’re actually exhausting.”

For the rest of the way back towards the barracks, Lark skipped circles around them both and whistled a cheerful tune.

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

sebmojo posted:

Interprompt: chess, the anime (100 words)

"ha, he'll never see this coming," said Gardock Mestefereferus

"w-what!? impossible, moving a bishop that far out of his pawn line? is he mad?" exclaimed Wally Flowers

"and when i move my bishop, it ends! chekkumeito!*" said Ponn Royale. winningly.

tl note: chekkumeito means checkmate

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Sitting Here posted:

don't worry i'll be gone soon

please dont die, dad.

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

sebmojo posted:

:siren:mod challenge:siren: judge quickly

cmon it'll be fun

i knew sa was gettin bad but dang man, they're stoopin' pretty low

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

what the gently caress

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Sitting Here posted:

Interprompt:

Prompt

prompt (prompt)

prooooooooompt

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
it also happened yesterday lol

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Sitting Here posted:

INTERPROMPT: Falsetto Dubstep Dracula in the Australian outback

this guy:



in this place:



ok go

nah (1 word):

nah

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

judging is fast because judging is good

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Tweezer Reprise posted:

Thank you very much for the crit QPQ! Gosh, getting a DM is VERY educational, isn't it?

welcome to the club, kiddo

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
in, give me a cover

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

High Cups (999 words)

Ini peered through the porthole. A man wearing a black hat and an oxygen mask appeared at the edge of the horizon. The gray dust of New Dakota’s surface swept upward in eddies towards the orange, storm-ready skies that crackled with thunder.

As Ini reached for her laser rifle, Chief Taah interrupted her with a grasp of the wrist.

“More violence? I thought Garish Dune was behind us. What if they offer peace?” asked Taah.

“I spared them upon surrender, was that not merciful enough?” asked Ini.

“There’s plenty of dust on New Dakota for all of us,” said Taah.

Taah sat down in front of a computer terminal as he took shallow breaths. He swept his nanofiber cloak over his body and wrapped his arms tightly in it. As he shivered, he looked toward the rest of the tribe around him, all of them wore sleeveless clothes.

Ini waited by the porthole. She tightened her fist as memories of the recent battle flashed in her head. She recalled the pale spacemen that screamed their unintelligible words of death, all while her brother Gosan wasted his own final words into a pool of his own blood.

When the pale man in the black hat approached the entrance bay, Chief Taah ordered him to be let inside.

The tribe stood by the terminal walls that flashed numbers that measured air quality, temperatures, and water accumulation. Chief Taah invited Harby to sit across from him at a large table. To Ini’s surprise, the pale man spoke in the tribe’s tongue, slowly and with a thick accent.

“I am… Harby, we are sorry. I’m from the Patori encampment a few rotations East. We meant no harm.”

“Do you apologize?” asked Taah.

Harby looked towards one of the terminals. “We, the Patori, apologize for the bloodshed at Garish Dune. It was a misunderstanding.”

Taah leaned back in his seat and tapped the table twice. He smiled as two of the younger tribeswomen brought cups of hot liquid.

“Drink in the broth of New Dakota. We celebrate,” said Taah.

Harby lifted his cup. An insult to the tribe, surely? Taah leaned back and shook his head. Harby lowered his cup and sipped from it. Taah drank too, satisfied.

As they drank, Ini stepped in front of her rifle.

The tribe turned towards Ini with contemptuous eyes.

A sourness covered Ini’s tongue as sat at the table beside Taah and Harby.

“May I join in?” asked Ini.

Another tribeswoman placed a cup in front of Ini. She drank.

The farmworm dinner that followed was traditional, but Ini ate only out of obligation.

In the middle of their meal, Harby pulled out a device with white blips over a local map. He turned towards Ini. “We forgive your murderous actions. We offer you this. It tells you where water is. Though you’ll need to power it through one of your systems.”

Taah picked up the device and marveled. Ini leaned in and pressed a button on it. The blips flashed red. Taah tugged it away from Ini. He stared at it briefly, then offered it back.

“It looks to be low on battery, Ini, go plug it in,” said Taah.

Ini took it and and stepped towards the nearest hub as Harby drummed his fingers to an odd rhythm.

“I refuse,” said Ini.

Taah slammed his palms onto the table as he stood. Two of the tribeswomen came to steady him. The chief coughed twice, then spoke. “We must make peace now. New Dakota will be the home of more to come.”

“I agree. Please, take your time,” said Harby.

“Do it,” said Taah. “If he means us harm, then we will harm them in return.”

Ini looked between Taah and Harby. She pressed the device against the hub. It connected.

Harby sipped the last of his broth and grasped his discarded oxygen mask.

“Is there a nearby lavatory?” asked Harby.

Chief Taah pointed to the hall. “Third door.”

Even after several moments, Harby did not return. Ini’s stomach sank. She eyed the terminals again, but nothing had changed. Suddenly, a woman, the oldest in the tribe, collapsed to the floor, followed by a young child.

Ini’s lungs tightened. She reached for the rifle and stepped towards the lavatory. She pressed against the panel to open it, but it refused. Ini punched in an overwrite code, but it refused to open. Of course Harby chose a lavatory, it was the only place guaranteed to have a locked door.

The leak alarms blared. Suddenly, an error message popped up on every terminal screen.

Virus Detected. Cannot Remove. Please Instruct: Yes/No

Ini raised her rifle and shot the lavatory lock. The door slid open. Inside, Ini saw the hints of a grin through Harby’s foggy plastic mask. She dragged the man out and threw him into the hall.

With glassy eyes of regret, Chief Taah raised his cup as high as it would. An insult fit for a traitor.

“I had a son, you know,” said Harby.

A second later, there was a gaping hole in Harby’s chest. Inside of it was a pile of ash, the only remnants of the pale man’s heart.

“Thank you,” said Taah with his final breath.

Ini grabbed the oxygen mask. Though she could breath, the rest of the tribe fell to the ground in unceremonious thuds. Ini dashed towards the terminals and tugged the map from the hub. She manually closed every vent and pumped extra air into the system. Nothing worked. She reached down and touched a young child, Amah, but she had gone cold. Ini slammed at the terminal with a closed fist and sobbed once into the mask.

Ini stormed out the entrance bay and into the orange night as she recalled the battle of Garish Dune. Every step towards the Patori encampment hastened her resolve.

Never trust the pale men, she thought. She clutched to her rifle, ready to rid New Dakota of their disease.

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

flerp posted:

awful week you all suck including the judges

Meatball Omega-6

Dont start with dialogue, especially dull dialogue.
Look, i dont like exposition and im trying to be a little forgiving this week, but when you start exposition with “it all started…” i just, come on now. At least try to make it natural.
This might be too self aware. I can practically see you behind your computer screen smirking, but it isnt that fun to read.
If you’re trying to go for good-bad, you didn’t hit it. It’s not bad-bad, but it’s too self aware and eye winking for me to really think this is good-bad.
Yeah on a reread its alright.
I just feels there’s too much eye-winking, what with literally saying he quipped and he said “huskily” and stuff.

Idk what even to judge this week by so i guess this is middle?

Delta V

Hi hello there run-on in first paragraph.
Too much talk not enough laser gun blowing up poo poo.
Tbh im skipping most of this dialogue because this is pulp week and pulp week imo isnt about people saying words to each other but about people having laser guns and shooting aliens in the face and finding new planets.
These r like awful lyrics. Like not even ironically awful just bad.
I liked it when she shot poo poo and i didnt like the parts where she said boring words about the world or something i dont know
I dont know what through your head, but maybe having a middle section of people just blandly talking about dumb bullshit nobody really cares about is a dumb loving idea.

Middle

Getting Stuck in Space and Quicksand

Wait what alien monsters strap somebody to a table and then is like “ok guys, job well done, lets take a rest and make her into an immortal monster trapped in a spacesuit tomorrow” and then also doesnt have any1 keep an eye on her or anything???? I mean im not about believability (esp when it comes to dumb scifi), i was willing to accept some aliens would kidnap a dude and put him in an immortal spacesuit to suck his bones or w/e but cmon now a little bit of believability would be nice.
Yeah dont name your two characters w/ similar names like Anna and Addams cmon now
Ok that ending made no sense and was super out of nowhere.
I mean this is bad. It is not good. The aliens, as antagonists, just do evil poo poo for whatever reason. The ending relies on a bunch of contrivances to work that arent even adequately explained, like why the hell would they be so attracted to the smell that they murder their queen or whatever? There is a bunch of exposition for you to explain poo poo. There’s not really anything fun pulp-wise, either, I think, besides the Skeletonman Jim.

Idk this is kinda trash but not signficantly more trash than the other stories.

Another One Bites the Dust

Hey this is a good opener!
“When she drove, she made you feel like the bombs never feel” -- the you should be he instead, imo.
Yeah this is cool. Good even w/o the dogs.
This is more like regular good and not good-bad but nothing else was really good-bad so i guess this is the best story
This was just good pulp. It set up a good premise, kept the energy going throughout the whole piece. It was pretty obvious Alice was somehow going to show up again and ive found myself rolling my eyes whenever the protagonist is inches from dying and then OH MY GOD hes saved!!!!! But i mean this is just pulpy fun which is what the week was about so it wins.

Win, probably.

A Brief History of Humankind

Oh god im like 100 words in and this is already painful.
Ugh
Too much talking, too cliche, feels like this is a joke thats already been done before and went on for too long.
Yeah this is just boring.
I say this a lot in thunderdome, which is a shame, and honestly, youve written much better comedy pieces than this so i dont rly think you need this advice, but maybe you do. But when your story is literally one joke (what if the earth was a obsessed woman coddling over humans and the moon didnt like the humans so they argued about it), it is NOT A STORY. It is a single joke that goes on for a thousand words. And, ive heard a lot of jokes in my life. So of them funny. But, after awhile, even the best joke gets old. Hell, almost every time a joke goes bad is not because it isnt funny but because it goes on for too long. So, yeah, thats the problem. Maybe this joke is funny, but is it funny enough for a thousand words? Hell no. No joke is. You need more in comedy story than just a single “lol what if.”
Also holy poo poo your entire story is dialogue. I know you lean onto your dialogue because you can give characters good voices, but c’mon now.
This shouldve DMed. I dont know why it didnt. Sure, it mightve strung along sentences better then a bunch of other people, but this was annoying. It didnt even feel like pulp to me. It just feel like a one-note joke without any action or change in tone or anything else. This felt like a waste of time, mostly, and legit, i was okay with this losing as well because this was terrible.

DM

Hanna-Barbera’s Stool

Why r u naming ur civilization after a std
One of the most painful moments, for me, is when i have a realization that something is trying to be ironically funny. This happened in your third paragraph.
The TMs are not funny.
Painfully unfunny.
The difficulty, when you try to write funny bad, is that funny bad is about a five minute drive from regular bad. Unfortunately, your story took the wrong exit and ended up in regular bad.
Ok i read this again and while its still bad, i think its more of a fun bad instead of a bad bad. Didnt make me laugh even tho it wanted me to but it was still a tad bit fun.
I mean, the ironic humor isnt working, and nothing makes sense in this story. Thats the major gist to take away from this. There’s nothing else to this piece besides its failed attempt at humors. The plot is mangled just to be extra funny, which you weren’t. Tbh, i think Profane’s is worse than this but you know whatever.

Maybe not DM??? Probably tho

The Unbearable Lightness of Giant Robots

I get it, its sci-fi, you need to have your Capital Words, but why robots? Robots and robotic are regular words.
Too much talking and watching. Needed more crazy antics. Not very interesting. I guess robots made out of snow is kinda cool but besides that, nothing much rly happened
Susan isnt rly much in this story. It feels like a serial story where id be like SUSAN NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO but im just like uhhhhhhh ok i guess susan is important or someting.
I wasnt too big of a fan of this. I mean i didnt hate this and its okay but it was just kinda like whatever, you kno. There’s snowballs and they turn into robots but the shift into trying to be an emotional story w/r/t susan falls flat because we dont have any context of susan. I guess if theres one thing this story does well is it implies at least a history of events before it w/o lines of exposition, which is good. But it feels hamfisted in its approach regardless, and the emotional core of the story feels forced.

Middle

High Cups

Beginning of a story. Kind of interesting premise but not much happens, too much time spent on intro, and no real conclusion.
I liked this more than I initially put. The betrayal was really obvious, especially when he put on the gas mask. Sci-fi native americans is p cool overall. It’s a good setup and I prob would’ve kept reading if this was more than 1k words but u kno word counts and all that stuff.
I wouldve picked this to HM over any other HM this week but thems the breaks. This was fun and felt pulpy. I think some of the vagueness hurt, like the specificity of what happened in the past. I mean, I know you didnt want to exposit or explain anything, but almost felt like I was supposed to read a story before this to have the full context of this story. And this story doesnt really conclude. It just ends in a way of saying “I’ll be back.”

High middle

Skull-Crow vs. Tank-Man

This story shouldve been so good-bad, what with lines like “the lightly clad woman on the neon sign would never do her jiggly dance again”
This was gonna be some good bad poo poo at the start but then it kinda petered out.
Yeah i thought this was gonna be some good ol’ pulpy fun but it turned out to just be a lot of words (most of them dull) for a dumb betrayal scene. More dumb things need to happen.
I guess i liked the subversion of the mindless monster whose like “KILL KILL” is actually the good guy.
This goes into the bad bad cateogry, i think
This is trying to be ridiculous bad but idk it doesnt lean into its ridiculousness enough to be like entertainingly bad.

DM

Devoured by Shitweasels

Finally a good title
I mean im just gonna say this, and this is a classic td problem. You give me a stellar rear end title, where im like, alright, lets see some goddamn SHITWEASELS and then your first line is the dullest poo poo in the universe and now all the wind in your sails are gone.
Wheres the drat SHITWEASELS at????
Classic star trek joke (gently caress u)
Ok this went from dumb pulpy poo poo into actual disturbing poo poo. Rapid tonal shift is the mark of a real good bad story so thats a +. However the beginning was super boring and dull.
This was bad tho. We know this, so lets just say that outright. The dialogue sucked. The tonal transition was bad. It’s just baffling to me that you title something with SHITWEASELS and we dont see SHITWEASELS for like the first half of the story? Like im not even asking for a lot here. Im just here for some dumb pulpy poo poo and SHITWEASELS hits that mark super well IF THEY WERE PRESENT IN YOUR STORY. But they werent! They just appeared in the conclusion to eat out some rear end in a top hat’s rear end in a top hat. God drat what a waste.

Low middle (but this shouldve been so much better)

Continuity

Kind of interesting. Feels done before, but ehhhh, this is about emulation or w/e. I just didnt find it terribly interesting. Too much talk about logistics and stuff, imo. Thats prob me tho bcause im a millenial who needs poo poo to blow up. Like i dont think this is bad, necessarily, but i, personally, dont find it too interesting. Closer to hard sci-fi than anything else this week and thats not rly my jam. I find it too dry, which this is.
Also the twist was kinda predictable and also been done before so its impact hit me like one of those wet pool noodles.
I think you have a nice tone here. It’s a little subtle and understated, but it has a bit of uncertainty creeping through it.

middle

Fishin’ for a Kill

gently caress you for a stupid rear end to be continued you piece of poo poo
Overall not bad
Yeah i mean this is kinda just pulpy fun (it kept reminding me of Snatcher, but Snatcher is better than this so sorry), but idk it didnt stand out to me at all really. It kinda just did its thing and left. I mean, maybe this wouldve left its mark if it had an actual ending instead of a to be continued which will never actually be continued.
yeah this crit is short maybe i wouldve finished it if you decided to finish your story

middle

A Rat in the Palace

This prose is godawful. Its like a mix of purple prose and like a weird stylistic thing that i cant rly comprehend.
I have no clue what loving happened
Ok some from my understanding, there is an Outlander who is like a cowboy and there’s a wizard in some tower. Hes like “im gonna go murder this wizard bcause ????” and he talks to a kid of a merchant whose like “youre loving dumb as poo poo” and cowboy goes w/e. So then he solid snakes his way thru the wizard castle, and then gets chased by the guards that are like monster creatures or w/e and then he fights the wizard who has a thousand-nipple queen or something i dont loving know, and then theres a boss fight with the wizard and the hat saves the cowboy life somehow and then he beats the poo poo out of the wizard.
Yep i wasnt rly sure if this was my tired brain that made this story incomprehensible, but it turns out it was the story!!!
Its baffling to me that this got an HM and somehow Profane didnt get a DM. I mean, lets be fair here, your prose here is awful. It’s stylistic terrible and sentences are hard to parse for no reason. It is technically awful. And the story is incomprehensible nonsense, and not any better than the incomprehensible nonsense of the rest of the week. I think this might have left a better impression of me IF the prose wasnt so terrible it didnt hurt my loving brain. I guess theres some cool nonsense buried in the awful prose, but im not gonna dig through poo poo in order to find a nickel.

Loser

ty

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
hell yeah wizards

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

crabrock posted:

How is tdbot doing? I miss him.

i murdered him, sorry

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Aesclepia posted:

Questions! Is there a word count? What is the word count? What date is the sign up deadline? What date is the posting deadline? What is the land speed of an American alligator?

in a quantum sense, both yes and no. it's 12. april 20th, 2069. also april 20th, 2069. depends, is it radioactive or not?

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

i smear myself in margerine wile staring u in the eye and sayying "bring it bitchess"

wow muffin are u going on a diet

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Exmond posted:

Dragon Problems
1482 words
first 140 words

"Miss Cauldron had a terrible week. Her students brushed off her house-magic courses and, after recently bungling a crystal ward strengthening demonstration, the other teachers would have joked behind her back were they present.

The ward had imprisoned a one thousand pound monstrosity within its stable. The stables themselves shook from the dragon's roar as it shattered the stable doors, rendering them mere planks and splinters. It stared down Miss Cauldron as if to remind her of her failure. Her heart pounded in her chest as her eyes widened and a scream crept up her throat. She snapped her eyes to the panicked screams of her students behind her. She would not allow herself to show weakness, not after her failure.

“I have everything under control," said Miss Cauldron.

She tried to force a smile, but her lips remained still."

why these changes:
cut out passive language where i could
bad to terrible - i don't want to hear about someone's bad week in a short story unless it was particularly interesting as well. freeing a dragon i think qualifies as terrible in terms of dramatic impact, don't you think?
i actually didnt read very far you can remove the "were they present" part if the teachers are actually there but it didn't seem like it so who cares whatever. subtract three words depending on the situation. i think removing teachers is more interesting and makes the conflict more personal.
you could argue that hearing the panicked screams and then reacting is appropriate. it seems like a gut instinct so it can probably pass in that sentence order. i wouldn't do that for other sorts of delayed reactions.
i added a personal moment with the dragon reminding her of her failure because obv she feels lovely about being in this situation and her conflict to overcome it is to display competency by dealing with the dragon. directly connects the interpersonal conflict with the physical one, basically.
teacher flying off the handle remark isn't too necessary as the personal drama seems to be more about her personal failures as a teacher. i combined those two things. obviously this is a debatebale change.
changed the order of the failed smile and made it more of a physical thing. she can't overcome her own ability to control her emotions, again character conflict w/e.
dragon smashing through the doors, i gave them a physical description, giving you an idea of the dragon's power. destroying a door easily makes it scary. obviously being a thousand pounds is also scary!!! but that shows its power and makes the conflict observable

im too lazy to do this to more than a twitter's post worth of content, but you get the idea of what i'm talking about in fa, yeah?

specifically referring to this post:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3807739&pagenumber=22#post476772432

countdown till crabrock calls me an idiot for not squeezing this down to 120 words or something.

anime was right fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Sep 26, 2017

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
i cant sleep what up

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
i didnt use capitalization when i won deal with it wordnerd

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
you dont have to tell us why you failed, just fail, no one cares, poo poo happens, lol

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anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

curlingiron posted:

INTERPROMPT: Man Agonizes over Tomatoes

200 words

mamma mia
this pasta just ain't right.
there's not enough tomatoes.
that's what you get,
in a post-apocalyptic italy.
eat up,
there's no sauce, just noodles,
and we're hungry.
we're hungry.
mamma mia, we're hungry.

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