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What's in  box number ten?
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Apr 5, 2017 17:03
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ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 02:14
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IN ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 19:30
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In with a to amend my shame.
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Apr 19, 2017 05:44
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ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Apr 24, 2017 04:03
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And the slain of the dome shall rise to shout prompt
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Apr 24, 2017 07:09
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Yeah 'ing in.
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Apr 24, 2017 08:07
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Crit for Ska.SkaAndScreenplays posted:The Passenger: When you seperate each line you're asking for each line to be considered carefully, and imo, the last four can go. The first half really gives the reader what they need. The next line will tell us its landed and melted free. quote:This water is new. What strikes me is how little emotion this thing shows on finding itself free, on a new world. This part is nearly half your text, exists utterly within the It's mind and yet leaves me with no feeling. Consequently, this is cleverly constructed but ultimately just describing things I'm familiar with in complicated ways. I do get that you're trying to create a cold voice to contrast with the Passenger gaining more emotion later, but you went a little too far to keep this opening engaging. quote:The everywhere that is alive churns predictably as It scouts for a suitable place to make Home. The part of Itself which resides in the fragile Home vanishes in an all-consuming darkness. I think this is the best bit of prose in here. Maybe I'm reading into it too hard but there's an implied fear of death, and definitely the the voice works best when describing human beings down to 'predictable' rhythms because that instantly provokes an indignant 'nuh-uh' from the reader. Well, this reader. quote:Human? It is puzzled by the concept - having only known itself and the its-before. Mycelia weave themselves across the Human’s cerebral cortex and plunge deep into the gray matter of the brain. So up until here you have me, this is good, this is cool. Melinda-It is going through some culture shock, the other Itselves have good voices, the conflict is interesting and clear enough so far. quote:She fights the urge to explore the mind of her new Home; to chase the sounds and bathe in the scents of the Earth. Now she must defend the beauty and truth of her discovery - Does the fact that It now understands that the Universe is the Greatest Everything serve as proof that we are not alone? Does it not make it clear that there are others that think? So this is where I get lost. As best I can tell, Melinda-It is trying to make the point that their vocabularies have suddenly expanded after contact with Humans is a definite mark in the 'these pink apes can think' column. Before they lumped the world into a vast Everything, now they have concepts like Universe, but.. The idea the other Itselves instantly have the concepts Melinda-It's gained by inhabiting a human seems contradictory with the fact she can't instantly show them what she's feeling, the sights and smells of Earth and whatnot, and the fact that in the next few lines they suggest she can lie. Basically, I'm unsure of what's being communicated and what's not and so the vocal side of the argument is deeply confusing. You might wanna obviate the nature of their connection if you ever touch this piece up. quote:A rush of endorphins tugs Her away from the debate for a moment as Melinda studies the colours and contours of her latest painting. She revels in the beauty and talent of her Human for a moment before the slow voice commands her attention again. I like this, although I'm still confused. There's something cool about the slightly shifted declaration of identity here. I think my individual nitpicks come probably come across harsher than the overall impression I walked away with. Its a tight nine hundred words that continues off the page, implying the apocalyptic infection to come. I respect the attempt to show a really alien consciousness from the inside. My main issue is it comes off as dry before the Passenger infects Melinda, and while it picks up emotionally after that, I couldn't quite follow the argument.
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Apr 24, 2017 19:51
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FLASH RULE
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Responding to crits makes you the true criminal this week.
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Apr 25, 2017 09:00
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Sea Shanties - 1310 words Beneath the shallow waves the sandbar was an outline of pale green, almost luminous. First Mate Brecken and his assistants pushed their boats ashore and waded onwards, sinking a little further into the green with every step, the sand sucking at their boots. The sun was already gone but its reflection wavered on the horizon. Just light enough. Brecken roped the ship to a pillar of black granite where the last crew had driven iron rings into the stone. His two companions went from rock to rock stringing barbed chains along the edges of their little island. He lit a candle as the last light faded and dripped wax onto wads of cotton. They met and pushed the plugs into their ears, speaking in hand gestures. In the distance, the ship that brought them shrunk away to nothing but a speck on the horizon. All secure. Shullet motioned, pointing in the four directions and clapping his fist to his palm. Light beneath the waves. Kur tried to sign. A wiggle of his hand, a downward thumb, a point to the candle. Brecken only understood what he meant because he'd seen that light himself, the first time he'd done this. That's fine. He was trying to be reassuring and failing badly, by the look on Kur's face. The light made the shadows look deeper and the boy's fear look worse. It was good sense to be afraid on his first outing in the Silent Trade. I think I saw a whale. Shullet could do a drat fine whale impression by candlelight. It kicked its shadowtail up across the rocks. Probably he thought it would lighten the mood. The trouble with Shullet was, he'd been out here too many times, and started to see the funny side. "Shut it with your whale." Kur snapped. He said more, but Brecken was only so good at reading lips, and the rest was lost save for the ocassional curse. He pointed to his ears and motioned for silence. Except for the push and pull of the tide around their legs, the next minutes might have been time standing still. Then the song started. They didn't hear it and didn't need to, they could see the world around them hearing, and everything was more. The white sand underfoot grew brighter until it underlit the whole of the ocean and showed the shadows swimming beneath; Graceful serpentine shadows with human arms. Brecken passed the lantern to Shullet and grabbed the music box from within the boat. It was heavier and colder than it should have been, looked like a plain cube of iron except for the lid and the lever that swung it open. He waited for the song to grow, for the oldest seawitches to crawl up on their favorite rocks and join the chorus. Having only soft, fish-like bones they hardly looked human at all, their slick grey skin hanging like an ill-fitting mask, but Brecken knew that wouldn't matter if he heard their voices. He almost did. As more and more joined the song, the faintest notes crept into his ears and made the world seem bright. The wind pulled at his curly hair in an exposion of cold and movement and the scents it carried. While they sung, every experience was more. He pushed the lever down and the box snapped open. A soft explosion of silence carried out over the waters, stilling everything, taking sounds Brecken hadn't even known he'd had, the rush of blood through his veins and the squeak of his boots. The song was swallowed up. The light vanished and the sea beyond their narrow footing in the shallows went inky dark. He pulled the lever back and the lid snapped down and all the sounds of the world came roaring in again, louder for having been briefly missed. The box was warm and thrumming in his hands. Even through his plugs he heard the witches' screaming. Brecken's own heartbeat was nearly deafening, and every breath rustled the hairs in his nose. A fishwoman had seen them, was sweeping through the waters towards him and all he could do was stare dumbly. She caught one of the chains with her underbelly and tore herself open on it, thrashing up into the shallows in a tangle of scales and shrieaks. Schullet stepped into the slick of black blood and finished the business with his sword. The others made no attempt to help. They weren't brave creatures by any means. Kur was gone when Brecken thought to look. His boots stood in the sand and Brecken should have remembered to watch him. "gently caress!" He grabbed for Shullet's lantern and lifted it overhead, manipulating the lens and mirrors to send two flashes towards the distant ship. It was already turning around to fetch them. The sails were visible in the distant dark. Shullet slapped him on the shoulder and pointed. A metal hook on a wooden pole, some farming tool rusted beyond recognition, was jabbing up out of the water and trying to snag their chains. Shullet took a step forward, cleaved it in half just past the metal, and caught a second spear in his gut as it came jabbing out of the dark. Brecken caught him and pulled him away. They had figured out the chains. So he threw Shullet back into their boat, picked the box from the sand and tossed that in too, and undid the chain on the far side. Hands grabbed for him as he ran through the surf and pushed out to sea. Cold fingers got his ankle. Brecken grabbed for the saber at his hip and another set of hands got there first, crushing his right arm to his side. For a moment he clung to the boat with his one hand, before he realized they were simply stronger, and gave up his hold to lunge for Shullet's sword in the moment before he was pulled under. The sea closed over his head and he opened his eyes to a wavering, foaming world. Lights burned far beneath. He swiped for the witch pinning his arm back and split her neck open. With a kick of its fishy tail the other let go of his leg, launched upwards and wrapped her thick arms around his neck instead. The tail coiled over his legs and he stabbed and stabbed, hitting himself more than once, feeling other impacts with flesh not his own in the dark. Finally he realized she was already dead, had stopped moving long before he stopped cutting, and fought to pull free of the dead weight. The burning pain in his lungs had begun to turn into something cold and numb when he finally kicked up towards the distant surface. He saw the sleek two-masted ship cutting towards him, scaring the seawives away. He saw their little boat upturned with its rudder bobbing uselessly in the air. He drew a breath and dived again. Brecken saw Shullet falling, found his companion at the end of a unfurling trail of blood. Shullet kicked and pawed the waters blindly. He saw the precious box falling faster. Sweeping past his friend Brecken grabbed for the heavy thing and fumbled, struck the lever and sent the lid swinging open. The sea wasn't dark at all. The uncorked witchsong echoed through the bright water and came in through the ear where his plug had been knocked loose. The box slipped from his fingers again as he forgot what he was doing and who he was. All he knew was he wanted to hear more of the song. He chased it downwards, leaving Shullet to drift and bob limply back to the ship and the sky and the earth. All those were for suckers. Brecken was headed for the world of witchsong and distant lights.
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May 1, 2017 02:09
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Gimme the first MYSTERY TECH BOX.
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May 2, 2017 01:21
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Murder on the Ockient Express - 1110 shameful words Flash Box - Space Elevator From the ground, the hypercarbon umbilical of Kadar Station was an impossible shadow, too tall and too thin, cutting the horizon in two as it rose through the low dust and the thin blue stratosphere. From the windows of an elevator-train climbing up, the whole planet looked absurd. Like a magician’s trick, more and more sky appeared, unwinding endlessly from the edges of the train windows as Kadar became a red marble in the black. Cobb wasn’t much of an authority figure, but with the captain lying dead on the ground with his pants around his wrinkled ankles and plenty of other wrinkles on bloody display, a lot of eyes were turning to him as the nearest face in uniform. Cobb plastered a grin on. “Very sorry for the disturbance. Nothing you can do now, so, free drinks in the lounge?” Bluntly ignoring a problem was the captain’s preferred response, and he thought of it as honoring the man he knew, instead of the corpse making a dumb face and slowly deflating as all the blood puddled out. That got most of the crowd out. Cobb shooed away the ones trying to film through their bright electric eyes. When the doors hissed shut again, Cobb was left alone with corpse and the New Wonders mystery cultist in shiny white robes, the one who had found this mess. He watched him try to push the captain’s eyes shut and give up halfway in disgust, shaking his fingers to get the feel of dead skin off. Blood was puddling and little robotic hockeypucks came out to scrub and sweep around the two of them, blissfully oblivious, and Cobb cleared his throat. “He’s dead.” Wonderboy looked up to Cobb for answers with big, wobbly blue eyes that spelled out just how he’d gotten involved with a bunch of wackos. He had a soft face and a blocky, cleft chin, and the dead serious way he pronounced it – as if Cobb wasn’t aware that his boss was, yes, bleeding on both of their shoes – made Cobb want to slap it. “Mhm. Yes. I see.” Cobb’s smile graduated into a kind of tight-lipped acceptance of the fact. Acceptance, not reaction. “Have you tried not worrying about that? Maybe worry about something else, or nothing at all, but don’t worry about this.” But never get involved. “Someone shot him.” The revelations just didn’t stop coming. “Uh-huh.” Which was worrying, for the sake of his own skin, but a worry he could solve by walking back to the front cabin and locking the door. “We have security agents for that on the upstation. If alcohol is out you could go up to the lounge and get a nice fruit juice.” Wonderboy actually shot him a dirty look. It was like a puppy barking, but still. “And do they ever actually find the criminals?” “Uhm.” Sometimes. “He’s cold.” “Huh.” Cobb lifted an eyebrow, trying to stay balanced on the right side of ‘caring about this.’ “There’s a gun under there.” Slowly, Cobb turned and got down on his hands and knees to stare under the molded plastic of a charging station. The molded plastic of a compact pistol sat in the dark. He wanted to scream at the stupid bastard who’d left it there like a neon sign. ‘Evidence!’ ‘Mystery!’ “You should be careful not to smudge any fingerprints.” Cobb’s head snapped back around to glare. “Can’t you?” “It’s against my religion.” The conviction there was as unyielding and thick as a rock, and Cobb somehow thought it really would be less trouble to fish the drat thing out for him. By the time he’d managed to get a hold without ‘smudging’ he even recognized it. “Look, it’s nothing. It’s not a murder weapon. It’s the captain’s.” He pointed it up and pulled. The trigger read his glove’s fingerprint and the little light on the side screeched red with a long, piercing whistle. “I heard that noise before! The whistle and then, I went out, and then, uh, he was…” Wonderboy trailed off, and before Cobb could open his mouth, started up again, almost tripping over his tongue in realization. “He’s got his gloves on too!” “So he…” Cobb stopped. Cobb bit his tongue. Cobb was too late, and Wonderboy was on the case. “He must have forgotten. Tried to shoot." Cobb cringed. Enough. Very patiently, dangerously patient, he shook his head and squeezed his words through a smile. “No, no, I’m really still hung up on how much you care about this.” “He’s dead.” “I get that!” Cobb couldn’t take one more glaringly obvious statement in his already-stressful day, which was supposed to be full of distractions and petty sarcasm. “Also, I get that this is someone’s job to fix, and that’s not me, and I can’t imagine they’d like us muddling up their little fiasco any more than it already is. So let’s go to the lounge and get a drink and mind our own business.” “That’s very reasonable.” The blunt contempt kicked all the wind out of Cobb’s gut. He bit his tongue, and realized it was a lot easier to forget Wonderboy was, well, quite pretty in a big brainwashed smiles sort of way, when he was the one holding the other in disdain. “Fine.” He put his hands up. “We have a gun and a body. That’s nothing. What are you planning to do with all that do-gooding spirit?” Wonderboy came up short for a second, and glanced down, and slowly his eyes gravitated in on the captain’s one closed fist. He peeled the fingers apart and took the plain white card. “OCK?” He turned it to the other side. OCK. “Well, that’s…” The door hissed open behind them, and the sound of screaming spilled in. One of the camera-eyed punk youths leaned in, clinging to the doorframe as he laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more while he tried to force the words out. “Dude! He’s gone nuts! He’s uh, he’s wow, he’s just humping away!” “What? Who?” Wonderboy shot up. “Someone who had too many drinks. Totally unrelated.” But he couldn’t quite believe that. The punk just shook his head, the wobbly pink ‘do sitting on his scalp like a neon dollop of icecream bouncing about. “Dude, you’ve gotta see this.” Wonderboy glanced at him, and then started off for the lounge, with or without. Cobb followed, and found an excuse on his way down-up the train as it crawled forward. His excuse was, well, there was simply too much crazy here to pretend he could get away from it now. What was OCK? One way or another he seemed doomed to find out.
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May 8, 2017 05:32
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In.
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May 12, 2017 20:33
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In
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May 20, 2017 03:12
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-archived-
ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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May 22, 2017 04:39
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A King Among Cats - 100 words Yea I say I am the best of cats, and slayer of dragons. Teeth snapped and fiery breath caught the hedgerows alight, but in the low grass I lost the beast and caught it by its tail. Miles of scale thrashed and swatted me against the ground, but I clung on, and climbed. The battle was fought and finally won at the throat, which I tore into landslides of blood. For seven days I worked to haul the beast home for the praise of my god. And he declared, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING ON THE FLOOR?
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May 22, 2017 15:39
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Thunderdome Week 251: We're Grammarpunk Now So here we are. After spending so long shouting idiot fjgj posts at the blood monarchy, I have become a lackey of the system and a tyrant of small authority. It's fuckin great! Your prompt this week is, besides generally trying to please my inconsistent whims, is to go Write a story about being a lovely punk youth in a fantastic world. Rebel against your parents, rebel against your clothes, find something new and interesting for your characters to hate. Steampunk is banned. Cyberpunk is allowed, if a little pedestrian. Maybe try magicpunk. And to help you all get in the mindset of suffering under unjust authority, the poster above you will provide a flashrule. Flashrules must be in the form of IN A WORLD WITH [THING] or IN A WORLD WITHOUT [THING] and should be kept short, please leave one in your signup post for the next signup to enjoy, just as the punks of today become the irresponsible adults of tomorrow. Wordcount is 1500 words maximum. Signups due Friday 12 a.m. Mountain Time Submissions due Sunday 12 a.m. Mountain Time Signups: First flashtyranny is - IN A WORLD WITH GHOST OVERPOPULATION. ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 14:19 on May 23, 2017 |
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May 23, 2017 14:05
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Bucking the status quo already. Tut tut. For failure to follow instructions, I'm ejecting you from the normal queue and handing down the flash rule IN A WORLD WHERE PARENTS ARE KILLER ROBOTS.
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May 23, 2017 17:35
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Signups are closed. And have been for a while, woops.
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May 27, 2017 15:09
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Submissions are closed.
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May 29, 2017 07:22
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The Judgement of Week 251 I told you to write stories about lovely youths. Some of you decided to rebel and write stories about emotionally-sensitive, conflicted youths instead, and those are the writers who earn a gold star this week. First we have to talk about the less good, who mostly rebelled against good writing and the patience of the judges. Something New by Hawklad earns our first demerit, by being kind of painfully slow and none too new. The main character just came off as confused, presenting endless reasons not to do what she was headed for, and while that's certainly true to life, gud story needs to dig deeper and find reason. I came away wondering if she wasn't supposed have some of her parents' dogmatic thinking, but the story simply didn't carry that through. Next, a demerit to Fuschia Tude for The Revolution Continues. It was rebellion, yes, but far too literal, and nothing about the broader world of senseless conflict and meaningless revolutions rung true as absurdist. Everything washes off the main character and I'm left without any feel for him. The good stories this week were delicious potato chips, they left us wanting more. In handing out the gold stars, we first honor Up and Up and Up by SurreptitiousMuffin. Kind of a stupid story, it pounded all its weird stupid ideas into our heads until they made sense, and carried one of the younger protagonists of the day in a style that felt real. The weird wobbly dialect going from 'foetid' to 'et' rang true in particular to how a smart child speaks. Next, Hunger by QuoProQuid. This story was full of weird and evocative things, sweat and Juicy Fruit and rotting leaves. Grey pains. It managed to describe itself in a broad language that resonated both with me and my memories of childhood. For the first half. The second half took a hard turn into cinematic cliches of wet smiles and 'hard twinkles'. It captured the tone of the Twilight Zone, but the ending simply failed to land. The story we liked most was kinda fluffy and very much a YA tale, but those aren't bad things, and it came at the heart of punk's idiot emotions - the raw horror of disappointing your parents' completely unreasonable expectations. Most importantly, both judges just wanted the story to keep going, and so we present the mantle of least-suckitude to Obliterati and Salt the Earth. We close on a sad note, and a dunce crown upon the head of Fuubi for High Noon. This story was just... ehhh? Not a stooory maybe? We think it was maybe tongue in cheek with the protagonist's arrogant voice and conviction that the adults are just dumb-dumbs, but it just didn't work, and the the fact it might not have been parody hung over it in a quantum unlikeability. ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 09:11 on May 29, 2017 |
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May 29, 2017 08:52
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Prooompt!
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May 29, 2017 08:52
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In, flash story, flash rule,
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Jun 10, 2017 02:03
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ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Jun 12, 2017 07:54
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In the spirit of punk week I put off doing the crits for, like, ever, and I'm not even all the way done So yeah enjoy. Four R's - Tweezer Reprise Ehhh. You had me until halfway through the opening paragraph. quote:It’s one in the morning. There is darkness in constant flow, washing over the streets, and around the buildings. There is the dim, icy glow of the cyan light-tubes embedded in the sidewalks, set to fade away gradually in a matter of hours, to show their deference to the all-encompassing rays of the Sun. 'Deference to the sun' really makes no sense. I like the flowery bits about the night 'flowing' outside their windows, that evokes a real sense of the wind and the movement in the dark outside as they try to stay up, but after that you take flowery too far and end up with a sentence that simply doesn't parse. You spend twenty two words on the fact that streelights turn off when it's light out. You should've quit while you were ahead. So that was weird enough to make me start taking things from a distance, and from there I'm never pulled back in. There's something funny and bombastic in describe teenage tryhards in densely overwritten prose, but that joke dies when you use that seem excess of words on every action, no matter how small. The story feels longer than it is. Again, you need to rein back. In the end, is this is a story about robots? Or kids who were raised by robots? It doesn't come off as either. The actual robo-parents and their attempts to raise a bunch of fleshy idiots are shoved into a brief retrospective paragraph, before the conflict is resolved by a leet hacker wiz popping up and fixing everything. It feels disjointed, never going far enough to let the absurd setup be funny, or pulling into the characters' perspectives enough to let us see how this situation has become an everyday thing for them. Salt the Earth - Obliterati This is good, concise story. I liked how you used the first person to weave the exposition in. Felt longer than it was, in the good way, and it held up well to a second reading. Don't really have any major criticisms to qualify that with. Hunger - QPQ I like it. I like from the moment the voice on the radio all-but shouts, this is gonna be some Twilight Zone poo poo. The description of 'huge, grey pain' is really good, welding the character's pain to evokation of the overwhelmingly uncomfortable mood, but better yet, its a metaphor that could only really be done in text. We talked in IRC and you know this story flubbed the ending, so I'm gonna focus on something else that bothered me. For the first half of this story, your description is on point and you weave a world of gray pains and people who smell like wet leaves underneath sweat and Juicy Fruit. This is great. What's not is when you switch, halfway, to talking about the 'hard twinkle' in someone's eye or their 'wet smile' glimmering the dark. These descriptions are essentially borrowing cinematic cliche. They take away from the weirdness and replace it with a familiarity that's one of the major problems with the latter half. Like An Arrow - Thranguy There's something to be said for the fact you introduce a version of time travel I've never seen posited, explain it to me without confusion, and without leaving me full of quibbly little questions. Um, I don't really love anything else about this story. Its competent, but written from a PoV that crushes the life out of the story for me. I never really get the sense that this is a showdown between the son, who has been waiting years for this confrontation, and a father, from who's perspective the son was a child just a few days ago. It feels, funnily enough, like you showed us an interesting concept for a world at a not particularly interesting moment in time. As a final note, yeah, okay, you got a laugh from the dead babies line coming back around.
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Jun 14, 2017 02:32
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In with http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/pug/
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Jun 17, 2017 04:48
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Chili posted:Not trying to start too much poo poo here, but I heard that Third Emperor gets his ideas from Highlights magazine. For those who don't speak Chili, allow me to translate. That random space he inserted in my name should be interpreted as a long, awkward pause to chew on his own genitals.
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Jun 19, 2017 19:20
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what now
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Jun 19, 2017 20:43
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Give him two flash rules
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Jun 19, 2017 20:59
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I'm just sharing the opportunity to beat you down. to crit all of Chili's stories if I lose.
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Jun 19, 2017 21:18
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Third v Chili Brawl Dreaming of You 749 words Lieutenant Osmond Isley told himself the last sliver of light would last forever and, when the pod doors clicked shut on that fantasy, tried to pretend it was still there, clinging to the memory. Dampened by miles of steel, the launch wouldn't even disturb the perfluorocarbon bath he floated in, breathed like heavy air. lzzy waited, hoped the cryosleep would catch him blinking and let his eyes open just in time for light Could have already happened Across the stars without noticing. Then the familiar whine cartwheeled overhead. Bzzt bzzt. He could feel it on his chest, fighting through the wilds of russet hair. Except there was no fly. Bzzt bzzt Izzy. It scuttled up his chin. The wings fluttering against his nostril as it tickled its way down. Hey, hey Isley! The finger flicked against his nose, rattling the fly inside. He gave no reaction until the voice huffed huffed off with its flies and fingers and Isley was alone in again. Waiting for the technicians to tuck the last meatpopsicle in the fridge. Hurry up. He was a tiny fish in the ocean and a cavernous mouth swept through the water- Izzy's head crashed against the pod's hatch as he flinched up. He dug his fingers in to the seam of the door, clung to the reality. When he could finally convince himself to let go and drift again, he laughed in exhaustion. See, funny poo poo. Gotcha again Isley. He groaned. "You know, Rogers, I think I was in your pod last time. Dozzit taste funny?" Tastes stale like we've been waiting forever. "Don't. Go gently caress yaself. Bother someone else." It felt like Rogers usually gave up by now but, what was time anyway? Izzy kept his mouth shut. It was good practice. There wouldn't be anybody on the other end taking complainta from a fresh popsicle. Rogers got bored again, left him in silence to count his heartbeat. Izzy,l is this taking too long? "Stop. I'm not stupid. I know you." Isley. I'm not loving around. Izzy, I've been talking to people. There was no voice to 'sound' panicked. Only thoughts, with real fear in them. "You're loving with me." That was real. Parallel-Captain Aedrin Rogers was a real sadistic psychic prick. Isley I've been talking. To others. Everyone's panicking. Durbyn wants you to know- He threw a one-finger salute. "You're going way, way too far here, Rogers. I'm not gonna take this one." Hold on. The pod was gone. He fell into dewy grass and warm sunlight, looked up towards a idylic checkerboard of pastures. A horizon full of brushstroke curls, so Rogers must have pulled this from a painting. It felt familiar. He was there too, sitting hunched-up naked in the grass. Perfluorocarbons dripped off his squished-up belly. "C'mon. Clothes." Rogers paused for a second, made it so, and Isley was still waiting for the axe to fall. "Izzy, I uh-" No fun seeing him stumble. Arrogance was normal, normal meant safety. "Some of us didn't go to sleep. I'm the only psyche. You, Durbyn and Casey are the ones I know." "Keep trying." Isley wished he was the guy who'd just throw a punch here. "And what did Durbyn say?" Rogers borrowed Durbyn's voice to say it. Some heartfelt and private poo poo. Wrong mouth. Izzy sat there, trying not to be the guy who ditched on scary realities. "So, we got the pipes in, we're taken care of..." Rogers was silent. "We're waiting. Conscious. So when you leave I'm in the dark." "I could keep doing this. Have fun with it. Could be a vacation." He chewed his cheek, "Izzy, I'm-" "You're not." Izzy tried to keep the hatred out of his voice, but it was hard to thought-lie. "You're not that nice. Why not gently caress off, live in your own head?" Rogers kinda puffed out his cheeks, and his own grudges were loud. "My head, not too great up there, I'll admit. Was hoping to vacation somewhere sunny. This," a wave, "Mostly yours." Izzy wasn't mean or generous enough to respond. Instead, "Why'd Durbyn talk like he was going away?" "He had me... Put him to sleep and tear the wake-up switch out, like, it's all..." He waved his hands. There was no explaining the psychic. "And maybe they can fix him." "Casey?" "Deciding. Not likely." Izzy nodded, and leaned back, took in the painted aphids crawling on the underside of the vibrant grass. He waited a long time to answer the unspoken question, yeah, longer than he had to. Small vengeances. Big favor.
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Jun 24, 2017 07:59
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sebmojo posted:next entry gets this fella gimme that
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Jun 24, 2017 09:40
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-archived-
ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Jun 26, 2017 07:53
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Slinking late into class, having put in minimal effort and ready to roll my eyes at all complaints, here's ya stupid crits for punk week, part 2 of 3. Something New - Hawklad Ehhhhh. This story just doesn't click in any way for me. Its a sad situation where everyone behaves more or less as you'd expect. I can't say I ever saw any depth to the main character or even knew why she wanted to get preggo - she gave better reasons not to do just that, and while contradictions like that exist in real people, there's always a logic. Even if its a logic they can't fully explain, or won't admit to. So yea you kind of give us this grim claustrophobic story that turtles into the main character's perspective, but that character falls flat. Can we talk about how she and her friends were drinking, um, fuckin spaceship coolant? How was there not some hosed up teenage antics? High Noon - Fuubi Maybe, hopefully, this was a joke, but the quantum uncertainty that it might have been serious hovered over the judging process. Critting this on the assumption it was meant to be funny, you failed at being funny, because its all confined to the MC's 'as-you-know' exposition rant. You present a gently caress-you-eggheads world where all the scientists were wrong, and are now busy weeping at their wrongness under various rocks, but hey, people actually think like that. Its not funny to just write a story from the viewpoint of an entirely mundane, egocentric lil' poo poo. You needed action, probably some dialogue with foil characters. In general this needed to be brought up to eleven, otherwise, well, the 'joke' is that there's guy, see, and he's egocentric and dumb in a real way that the people reading have probably seen and had to deal with in the real world. Snacks for Two - flerp This story is the farthest anyone strayed from being punk, and sometimes not being punk is kinda punk. I'unno. The lack of any real rage against the machine limited how well it was gonna do with the judges, but just by being such a tonal break from the worst of the grim-blehs, it left us with a lingering fondness. Its like, solid middle in writing, kinda insubstantial as a story, but it delivered a feel. The Quality of Mercy - Kashai I genuinely laughed when I realized this was gonna be a story about owl pit fights. That's awesome. Telepathic owls are awesome, and these ones came off as properly scary. I don't know precisely where the story went astray after that, although there was some lack of clarity in the fight scenes. The bit where Rill's eye is gouged out lost a lot of its potential impact by being muddled into a dual-perspective bit that made me double back to figure out what just happened. It was still a good moment and the piece overall is solid. I liked the opening paragraph a whole lot, although the co-judge argued it was too stiffly worded to express teenage rage, but we both agreed the ending was just weak. At the end of the day, we don't really know much about Rill outside of her anger and - eventually - limited willingness to take it out on other people. We know almost nothing about Oowan or why they find it so easy to forgive her. In the end, while the choice to leave revenge behind is an obviously positive one, it also blanks out the only aspect of Rill's character we really know. Its hard to get excited for an ending like that. Imperative - sittinghere Urgh. I had to read this story twice and it hurt both times. There's something equally believable and horrible in the early dialogue, strong tension in the prose, but overall its just easier not to feel anything much about this story because holy poo poo. Ouch. I wish there had been, if not necessarily something to lighten the story, some better idea of what's waiting out there for Rebecca. This story. Just ouch. AND NOW, A PREVIEW OF MY UPCOMING REVIEW OF CHILI'S ENTIRE BODY OF 'WORK' -  
ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jun 29, 2017 |
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Jun 29, 2017 15:16
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punk will never die but punk week is finally fuckin dead cuz here's your crits 3/3 Up-and-up-and-up - SurreptitiousMuffin I really liked this story-ish thing, and found the voice more funny than annoying, so good job writing from a ten year old's voice without making the reader hate you. Despite being mostly worldbuilding you managed to squeeze recognizable moments of emotion into this, so it felt engaging, and I was put out when it ended so suddenly. But really, 'fuckface shittyboi' and the general stylishness of the piece was what pushed you over the top. Mara's Private Diary - Dr. Kloctopussy This was almost entirely comedy with a lil' worldbuilding, and it did get a laugh, so I'd say that counts as success. I wouldn't say the story felt very ambitious, so it came short of an honorable mention, but it played off high school stereotypes without lingering so long it got eye-rolling, and having Mara reject Desdemona's apology and go through with her evil plan regardless made setting it in hell pay off in relevance to the actual character arc. The Revolution Continues - Fuschia tude I question your whole approach here. Your prompt was 'In a world where everyone's a rebel' and your spin on that was 'nobody is.' Bleh? You negate the whole prompt by spinning it that way. Your evil 'revolutionaries' are just generic fascist baddies with some electrowhips thrown in to, I guess, spice this up with a dash of cyberpunk? It didn't work. Your worldbuilding got in the way of good action, and your action wasn't effected at all by the worldbuilding so neither really cohered into anything believable. Sunstorm - Uranium Phoenix Boooo. This is the one story this week where the lovely punk teen learns, hey, maybe I should be less a poo poo. You keep that moral lesson junk outta my punk fictions. This was a worldbuilding-heavy story and I followed along fine, but without great enthusiasm for the kinda ehh world. I liked the voices, the half-baked nihilism, I really liked the sheer stupidity that gets them into the situation and the bittersweet ending a whole lot. What held this back in its later half is the action, which came off as very cliche; the one person sacrificing themselves to hold open a door is just worn-out. Ms. Lorethen can't just collapse from radiation burns there has to be a big ol' bolt of lightning. The Dragon's Disqualification - Deltasquid One of my least favorite tropes in YA is 'protagonist encounters obviously stupid tradition, instantly convinces everyone its stupid' so good job on avoiding that and letting the characters just fail. You did a good job conveying distinct characters despite them sharing a very formal voice, and in echoing that formality in the narration. There was a bit of as-you-know expositioning but them being loudmouth teens bitching about the system covers that up somewhat. The biggest issue is how qi doesn't really feature much in the story. Besides an offhand mention of the school floating, I don't see how you worked the prompt in outside of a general fantasy-China vibe. I can't say you did the flash rule justice despite the story itself being strong.
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Jul 3, 2017 21:30
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for wizards
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Jul 4, 2017 20:15
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I will stack 200 words onto whatever the highest wiz bribe is So currently that's 420, and 200 from me makes 620 for wizkids.
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Jul 7, 2017 07:12
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I bribe 200 words to Djeser to continue being a wizkid.
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Jul 7, 2017 07:46
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it would be a sin to call the losing side a bunch of beefy farts so I won't but I'll give a gently caress yea to djeser good buddy ol' friend
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Jul 7, 2017 08:05
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:15 |
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-archived-
ThirdEmperor fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Jul 10, 2017 07:23
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