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derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
I will be IN

been a few years since i tried a 'dome

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derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
Love on the Rocks
1997 words


removed



derp fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Sep 22, 2017

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

Uranium Phoenix posted:

Interprompt: Duels at high noon
75 words

No shadows. Sun sizzles on my scalp. Lips crack, skin flakes red. Eyes blink sticky. My tongue is a paper reproduction. Resist.

Cool crystalline water, ice snap cracking, condensation beading near my hand. Dusty fingers, split knuckles--they are the cracked soil longing to absorb drops from the cool glass. Resist.

He wobbles. A tower tipping, head drooping, hand swaying. His fingers touch glass. Grip it, tip it. The ground drinks. He laughs. Still I resist.

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
muffin's story, :golfclap: i enjoyed it a lot. thanks for the hm it is a true honor, i sucked bad last time i posted here.


thanks for the crits tyran

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
IN

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:



how do you feel about Night Dealings



awesome

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ty for those crits SH

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
Night Dealings
1725 words

removed


derp fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Oct 17, 2017

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
i really appreciate all the thought and effort put into these crits, some even from people not required to. thank you all for your thoughts, its helpful reading others thoughts on stories other than my own, too. also, i've never been part of a writing community that wasn't a big circlejerk of back patting, so this is pretty refreshing. thanks!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
Sebmojo is so bad at writing he puts a goatse instead of every colon, and a smaller goatse for every semicolon

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ty for the crits! sitting out the next couple rounds

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
back in and flash me!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
Prompt: roman dodecahedron

Light of Other Days
2000 words

removed

derp fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Oct 17, 2017

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

Obliterati posted:

INTERPROMPT
Nobody cares why you failed
100 words

A whole week to write a few pages long story?? This is impossible! My life is so busy I can't set aside a few hours over the course of a week to do a thing I'm supposedly very passionate about! I might end up writing something bad, and have it seen by a half dozen people before I can easily delete it from view! I'd better just write nothing!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ho boy this sounds fun deal me in

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

Obliterati posted:







Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle asserts that it is by definition impossible to perfectly observe any subatomic particle.




holy poo poo did i win the lottery or what

tyvm

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
Ty fuscia :)

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ty delta!!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
that is a lot of entrants :o is this the most popular prompt in thunderdome? if not what is? just curious

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

Obliterati posted:

The Mandelbrot Set is one of the best-known examples of fractals.

oh man, the only one ive seen yet that might be better (for me) than the one i got.

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
prompt: Heisenberg uncertainty principle

Dealing with Certainty
1911 words

removed

derp fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Oct 24, 2017

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

Kaishai posted:

:siren: Thunderdome Recaps! :siren:



Sometimes the recap crew comes across a story that's so special (for certain values of the word) that Sitting Here and I decide you guys would enjoy Ironic Twist's unspoiled reaction--or at least that we would. And what do you know! Our coverage of Week 265: KEITH APE and Week 266: J. Walter Weatherman and Friends gives you two chances to revel in Twist's suffering as we read Exmond's "Butting Heads" and magnificent7's "Prince Tardigrade" aloud. The moral of the story: do not detach your progenitive organs in the first few minutes of recording.

“Oh it’s okay in this case. These aren’t like your sister Trudy. It’s okay to call them tards.”


Week 267: The Horror....the horror belies its name as we examine its macabre high points: icy eyes and murder ghosts steal the spotlight for a time, though eventually, inevitably, our eyes and our voices drift to the quadruple amputee playing piano in the corner of Exmond's "Why did the bee hum?"

Shall we talk about the writer typing their dreams into ones and zeros, their meaning lost in the BuzzFeed? Or about the judge who sees words and wants to die?


Episodes past can be found here!

Wow, this is awesome. You guys are awesome.

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ty obliterati, what an effort. :o

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ty for the crit exmond!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ty jitzu!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

Exmond posted:

Wait I didn't ask for a flash rule though?

now you get two >: ]

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
Ho boy

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
If i tox do i get more words too

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
okay :toxx: but i only need 1000 words, flash will be flash!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

sebmojo posted:

what was that? you want to enter and have a brutal flash rule? but of course, I live to serve.

in and :siren: none of your characters are able to understand each other :siren:



Come One, Come All
915 words




The only thing worse than the putrid hay scattered in Cuco’s tent was the ugly children. All day long they stumbled in, holding an icecream or a meatstick or cookie in one undeveloped hand, and blinking stupidly at him with watery eyes. And all day long he lunged at them, hands grasping and teeth gnashing, only to crash backward at the grip of his chain. If he made one of those wretched little freaks drop their cone or cookie and flee crying, it was a good day.

A woman ducked in with Cuco’s meal--a loaf of bread, brick of cheese, a sausage, and a pitcher of beer, same as always--and set it on a wooden stool just within reach of his chain. She scurried back, but waited to watch him eat. Her eyes glinted with a kind of voyeuristic power that made Cuco furious. At least she was fully formed. He did not gag at the thought of eating food touched by her hands.

He chomped the bread and cheese--saving a bit in his pocket for later, as usual--then poured the drink down his throat. “This beer tastes like water!” he howled at her, but she just stared. He threw the empty pitcher at her. She dodged, as usual.

Cuco pulled at his chain after she’d gone but it was attached to some kind of perfectly flat stone and he couldn’t move it an inch. If he had something to wedge between the links he was sure he could pry them apart, but there was nothing like that in his smelly, hay strewn tent.

Another child pushed through the flaps. Stupid, round face and bulging eyes. Miniature, pupa-like hands holding a stick covered in something puffy and pink. One deformed leg was supported by some metal contraption that dragged, scraping and clattering along the floor with each step. Cuco’s ears rang and his gut churned. His reactions demanded him to charge, hands clutching, arms stretching, toward the brat like he always did. But he held back. He clenched his jaw and hissed breath between his teeth as the mutant wretch stared at him with the most empty, glassy eyes Cuco had ever seen.

The chain, the chain. Cuco vibrated with the desire to crush the idiocy out of the aberrant little grub’s face, but he held still. The chain, the chain, the chain. Cuco kept this mantra looping in his fuming mind. The chain! His fists shook and flecks of foam appeared at the corners of his panting maw.

The child pointed at him and spoke, an incomprehensible mewling.

“Come closer, just a bit closer,” Cuco rasped. “Closer.” But the thing just stared daftly and babbled on with the sound of a dying pony.

Then it took a step--a step, god, a step!--toward Cuco. Its shrunken feet on maggot legs--one pudgy, one withered and clad in metal--shuffled, clicking and clacking, up to the red line that must not be crossed. The red line that measured Cuco’s reach. The red line that told Cuco exactly when he could reach.

“One more step,” he hissed. The thing smelled of piss and sour milk, but he needed it closer. “Come over the line you little beast, one more step.” Then his red-fogged mind cleared for an instant and he remembered the heel of bread and nugget of cheese he’d saved. He took them from his pocket and tossed them just on his side of the line. “Come to the trap little mouse.”

It came! One step, two. Foot over the line--

Cuco sprung, hurled forward and--snatch!

The child dangled by its crippled leg from Cuco’s huge hand. It squirmed like a worm on a hook. It screamed and screamed, and Cuco grinned. He raised the little creature to his mouth, and bit at the cloth straps on its deformed leg. He grabbed the creature by the neck with one hand, and pulled the metal sheath from its leg with the other.

“Yes!” Cuco tossed the child like a moldy fruit and wiped his hand on his shirt. He bent to his chain and jammed one of the metal poles of the child’s brace between the links. He wedged it against the ground and levered with all his weight.

Crack, clink, clatter, free!

He threw his fists up and roared, then charged at the slice of light between the tent flaps. He leaped over the child crying on the floor, and burst out into day.

Sunlight tingled on his face and he blinked, dazzled. Strange music and the clatter and groan of machinery filled the air. He smelled cooked meat and sweets, but also poo poo. Animal poo poo and sour child poo poo and vomit and hay--hay everywhere.

Murmured jabbering floated up around him on all sides--and getting closer. He rubbed at his eyes and the view came into focus.

Children squeezed around him like a squirming mass of worms, edging in, reaching for him with drool-smeared hands. Every vacant eye pointed at him. Every slack mouth breathed toward him. And beyond the crowd were still more. Children on horses and donkeys, children in sickeningly colorful costumes, children holding small animals, children being lifted to the sky by strange contraptions, children dancing to bizarre, lilting music, children eating meat or fruits or chocolate and smearing it on their hands and faces and clothing all while staring directly at him.

With a throat-rending howl, Cuco flung himself back into the tent and cowered on the floor beside his broken chain.

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
She scans the menu as I remove my fedora and balance it carefully on my knee. It actually is not rude to wear it inside, and gentlemen of the day did so all the time--but I am never one to start a confrontation over such a trivial matter, and acquiesce to the waiter's third request.

"I don't like fruit salad. It's too sweet," she says, still taking her time to make a choice.

She's so cute with her scientific illiteracy. With a paternal sigh, I grin and lean over the table to touch her wrist. "Well, actually a tomato is a fruit, so you likely eat 'fruit salad' quite often."

Something has twisted the fabric of the universe into a cruel shape with strange shadows, though, because her lips do not bend upward into an unstoppable smile. Her eyes do not glimmer with laughter held back and respect for my kind impartment of knowledge. Instead, in this strange alternate world, her lip twitches, and she takes a hiss of breath in between her teeth.

"Ahhh, oh no. Something has come up." She says, looking at her phone with its screen still black. "I have to go, sorry."

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
i forgot the reasons why people write anywhere other than google docs?... something about bespoke artisanal fiction on handcrafted paper with archival ink, or something?

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
ty for the crits soltair and yoru!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

Sitting Here posted:

nah

fight me. someone.

you are fought.

by me.

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
is there a word max. never done one of these

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
i will destroy you in a reasonable amount of words!! :toxx:

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy

sebmojo posted:

Derpinghere Brawl

Gonna use my awesome flash rule that someone left on the floor last week: 3 dumb faces and only one fist.

Due 7 nov 2359 pst

Fat Bugar List
1550 words


All three looked stupid--hard stupid, like putting your savings in bitcoin or raving about a flat Earth. Vacant eyes, low brows, uneven ears, gaping mouths with small teeth. Of course, she’d keep her own teeth, but that hardly lessened the stunning impression of idiocy each of the faces gave.

“These are the only choices? Really?”

The agent who’d escorted her this far nodded slowly, while digging around in his mouth for something lodged there. “They are the only one’s covered by your relocation program, yeah. And there’s only so many, you know. You’re not the only goon snitching on someone.”

“Right. Great.” Jenny put a hand on her hip and bit her lip. She swiped back and forth a few more times between the options on the monitor. The decision was clearly between the one with the ear halfway up the scalp, or the one with the huge forehead. The one with the misshapen eyes and pig-nose was just too much. Each option had an ‘X’ and a check mark beside the portrait. She tapped the ‘X’ on the wonky eyed face to clear it out, but instead it lit up in a green glow.

“Cool, nice choice, let’s go.” The agent lurched out of his chair and headed for the door.

“Wait, no, that’s not the--I hit the ‘X’!”

He stared blankly and sucked at his teeth, still chasing some bit of food there. “Yeah, so you picked it.”

“You’re not listening. I hit the 'X', not the check mark. Undo it.”

“The ‘X’ is yes. The check mark is no, it’s right there in the instructions. Relocation Inc gets around the licensing fee for X’s and check marks by using them in different ways than they were copyrighted for.” His eyes widened in triumph as he dislodged the bit of food. He laid it on the tip of his index finger for a brief inspection, then wiped it on his pant leg. “Okay, let’s get a move on, almost lunch time.”

“No, wait.” She grabbed his arm, and noticed remorsefully the light pink scar tissue on her brown skin spelling out the word ‘fist’ across her fingers, just as clearly as the tattoo that had been removed earlier that week. She eyed the agent’s name tag. “I told you, Gavin, I don’t want that face. I want to change my pick.”

“Can’t change it.” Gavin pushed on her hand with a finger.

“Bullshit you can’t.”

“Well, we could submit a request for--”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“--a reselection, but those can take a few days to be approved. Your safe-house appointment is tonight, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Right, so...”

Jenny stared at him for a moment, but his blunt, round face showed no trace of empathy. “Fine. Let’s go.”

She followed him into the next room, where a machine like an explosion of metal limbs sliced and stitched and printed and molded her face until it was as new and stupid as the day she was born.

Jenny spent the ride in the black sedan not looking at anything reflective. The drive to the airport turned out not to be a drive to the airport at all, but a short trip directly to the safe-house. It was not even twenty minutes away

“We’re still in the city, Gavin.” Her new, massive chin made her voice sound foreign and mushy.

“Yep.”

Jenny followed him to the entrance of an apartment building. “Billy ‘the Bat’ Hudson is in this city, you’re doing a poo poo job of hiding me.”

Gavin held up a hand. “It’s best you don’t tell me the details of your case. Anyway, housing assignments are made based on a cost-effective algorithm. This is the location with the best safety/price ratio. You can request a change but--”

“But it will take days. Right. Just show me in.”

The unit was a two bedroom of a surprisingly comfortable size. Jenny forgot to be pissed for half a second, before catching sight of her daft visage in the bathroom mirror.

Gavin waved a thick-fingered hand around. “So this is it, uh, you can purchase upgrades of course. There are two pairs of clothes in the closet and some food in the fridge, with fees naturally. Oh.” He pulled some papers and a passport from his jacket. “Your new ID and history. Memorize it before you go out anywhere.”

“Thanks.” Jenny flipped open the new passport. “Wait, no this is wrong.”

Gavin looked at the passport, frowned, shook his head. “It all looks in order.”

“In order?” She thrust the document in his face. “My new name is Benny Josco? Dozen’s of Billy the Bat’s goons are out there searching for Jenny the Fist Bosco, and you change my name to Benny Josco? That’s in order?” The passport was pressed against his cheek when she finished.

Gavin pushed the passport back with a single finger. “I don’t choose the names. It’s an algorithm based on cost/safety ratios.”

“I want to put in a request.”

“A request?”

“To change it to something else! I’m here now, I can wait a few days.”

“Okay. Sure.” Gavint made some entries on his tablet. “You’ll hear back in a couple days with your pricing options if you’re approved. If you’re lucky you’ll only have to pay ten to twenty thousand.”

Jenny didn’t have time to protest before he slammed the door on his way out.

Jenny tried to relax into the silence, but it wasn’t long before her anxieties crept up on her. She checked each window to make sure it either was locked or could not open. She checked the lock on the door ten times over twenty minutes. She took off her shoes to walk in silence and put a towel in front of the door in case any light could give away her location. She avoided the bathroom and the small mirror inside.

After three days of living in fear, she heard a knock on her door. She peered through the peephole, then opened the door for the same daft agent.

“Hi Benny,” Gavin said, and it was a moment before Jenny remembered that Benny was her. Then it was another moment before she recovered from the shock of seeing the woman standing behind Gavin. She looked incredibly stupid, with a sloping forehead and small, close-together eyes.

“Who is that?”

“This is your room mate, Hilly. Hilly, meet Benny.” Gavin waved the new woman in.

The dim looking lady strode confidently past Jenny into her new home.

“Wait, roommate?” said Jenny. “You said nothing about a roommate!”

Gavin raised a bushy eyebrow. “Who did you think the second room and second pair of clothes were for?” He chuckled to himself and shook his head as he shut the door.

The new woman, Hilly, poked around the rooms and Jenny hurried after her. “Hey, this is my room. I’ve already slept in the bed, take the other one.”

“The other one is smaller.” Her voice sounded familiar to Jenny. If she ignored the vibrating lisp caused by the large, drooping bottom lip, she could almost place it.

“Well I was here first. So deal with it.”

Hilly pushed past her, went into the bathroom and started undressing for a shower without even closing the door. Jenny was about to shout something about not using her towel when she noticed a conspicuous scar across Hilly’s back. It looked very similar in shape and size to the tattoo of a baseball bat that Billy ‘the Bat’ was known to have across her back.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Hilly had caught her and was now staring her down.

“Hilly, uh...” Jenny hesitated, afraid of what would come next. “Is your last name... Budson?”

“Yeah, and what about it?”

“Nothing I.. I gotta go.”

Jenny darted to her room, but then stopped, unsure what she would take or where she would go. She had nothing but the one pair of clothes they’d left her. That, and her new, ugly, stupid face that--judging from how easily she’d recognized Billy just now--would do little to hide her.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Billy stood in her door, her shirt back on and her eyebrows narrowed like tiny check marks on her massive forehead. “You’re Jenny 'the Fist' Bosco, aren’t you.”

Jenny balled up said fist. “Yeah.”

Hilly nodded. “Thought so. Don’t worry. I’m out of the game now, too. I ratted on Katy the Lugar Finnigan. So, forget about it. Let’s just wait this out.”

“Right.” Jenny sighed, but couldn’t really relax until Billy left her room. Before Billy could get back to her shower, though, there was another knock on the door and they saw Gavin through the peephole yet again.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said when they opened the door. “I just got another one for you. We’re a bit overbooked so you’ll have to manage.” A bug-eyed woman with a mouth too close to her bulbous nose squinted at them. Gavin pushed her forward. “Here is your new roommate, Fatty. Fatty, meet Benny and Hilly.”

“It’s pronounced Fatey, like I keep saying.” The woman pushed past them into the room. “This whole thing is bullshit.”

Jenny and Hilly looked at each other. Jenny said “Yep, sure is,” and shut the door on Gavin.

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
also ty for the crit seb!

derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
Ty seb! Super helpful crit. Congrats sh, that was a vivid and weird story

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derp
Jan 21, 2010

when i get up all i want to do is go to bed again

Lipstick Apathy
reading and writing is for dumb idiots

play a video game

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