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But then, the Orchid 530 words There was an orchid on a windowsill in the city by the sea. The windowsill is gone, along with the building it adorned, so the orchid must be far inland. The orchid is far inland, near a small town east of the city, so it must be in the care of a young woman whose father passed away. Orchids are picky, delicate flowers; the orchid is blooming, so the young woman must have inherited her father’s penchant for growing things. The orchid shares its new windowsill with succulents, small ferns, and a cactus. The orchid and its companions are thriving, so the young woman must sing softly while she waters them. The young woman sings softly to her plants as she tends to them, so she must live alone, with no one to hear her tentative melodies. The window beside which the orchid sits is closed, so the young woman must’ve shut it to keep out the smoke from an approaching wildfire. There is a world where the lands east of the city by the sea are lush and green and uncharred, but the orchid is not blooming in that world. No one comes to evacuate the young woman, so she must’ve built her home herself, on a remote plateau outside of town. She no longer sings while she waters her plants, so she must look out the window and sigh at the approaching pillars of smoke. There’s a world where the woman has a lover who convinces her to flee, but the orchid isn’t blooming in that world, either. The orchid and its companions are thirsty, so the young woman must be crying softly in her bed. The woman is crying softly in her bed, so the whole continent must be on fire; a wall of hot, lapping tongues, pushing their way ever north, driving the people ahead of them like cattle. But the orchid is blooming, and so long as the orchid blooms, it will bloom. The fire is within view of the orchid’s window, so the young woman must be watering her plants one last time, singing her tentative song through tears of despair. The cactus is overwatered, so the woman must be very drunk, as she has been every day since the fires began their relentless march on her home. The house is burning, so the woman must be screaming in a bathtub full of water. But the orchid is blooming. The orchid is blooming, so a great chasm must’ve opened up across the lands east of the city by the sea. There is a great chasm that spans hundreds of miles, and so hell itself must be yawning, jaws wide, inhaling the smoke and fire, peeling the flames off the remote house and sucking them down into the infernal abyss. Hell yawned, so the skies must be clear and blue, and the woman must be staggering out into the sunlight, full of liquor and wonder. The over-watered cactus has been repotted and the orchid is blooming, so the young woman must have moved south, to lands made verdant by nourishing ash.
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Dec 9, 2018 21:57
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| # ¿ Oct 16, 2024 09:26 |
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oh gently caress yeah in
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Dec 11, 2018 20:29
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preemptively  ing for the brawl i hope someone isn't too much of a coward to challenge me to
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Dec 13, 2018 10:28
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HUGE thanks to Antivehicular, who was my secret santa this year! What a haul! Also thanks to chili for organizing this, and for surprising me with fancy art markers! If you haven't got your secret santa gift yet, there's a chance that it's from me and will be going out shortly 
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Dec 14, 2018 00:04
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Last minute ready-up. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's lush yet pointless description! 
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Dec 15, 2018 08:23
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In Lieu of (Again) Empty coke cans. A partially consumed cup of V8 Splash. A joy-con controller sticky with frosted doughnut fingerprints. The air smells of farts issued gleefully and in spite of household flatulence protocols. The afternoon is prematurely dark, veiled by winter's shadow. A document sits blank, the cursor flickering in and out of existence. A pile of clothing scattered around an overnight bag. A sleeping bag on the floor, splayed open like a camo-patterned butterfly pinned to a reluctant corkboard. A text saying Sorry, we're running late. Hope he's behaving himself. The absence of tire sounds. The persistence of Mario sounds. In the bedroom, the bed is messy, blankets knotted into an anxious, troubled mass. In the living room, the stale smell of too many warm bodies, too many minigames, too much carbonation, and too little parental authority. In the refrigerator, over-ambitious quantities of pizza going stale in a cardboard box. A text message asks: Did you guys get out of the house at all? The patter of rain against the windows. A document sits blank, the cursor flickering in and out of existence.
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Dec 17, 2018 03:27
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Yoruichi posted:You’ve got about 12 hours left to sign-up. okay, i'll try. In. 
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Dec 22, 2018 02:10
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Sun Below 991 words He is the Sun of the Shallows. His eight tails are longer than an eel, each of them punctuating in feathery fins that sway with the mood of the currents. His scales are a parade of reef colors: clown fish-orange, coral-pink, the livid yellow-blue of the angel fish, and the many chromatic exclamations of the octopus. His long, lean torso is a sensible brown, darkened to the color of wet sand by the plentiful sun. His arms are long and slender; two of them taper into cruel barbs, but his second pair of arms feature appendages more dangerous still: hands. With these hands, he draws the sacred waterknots of the sea. He wields the harpoons of men. He cracks shells, pulls garlands of octopus eggs from their nests. Today, he billows through the shallows, searching. Those cunning hands pluck from the sand a glass bottle, corked and occupied by a coil of yellowed paper. He breaches the surface, casting the paper aside to wilt on the tides. He tilts the bottle so its mouth is filled half with sky, half with sea. He watches the liquid skin of the world pour into the clear vessel. Holding the bottle above the waves, he seals the cork tight, preserving the warm mixture of air and water. Then he dives, holding the bottle tight to his chest with all four arms. The creatures of the reef shrink away from him but don’t flee entirely, flattered as they are by the sight of their own colors in his majestic tails. They are lucky today; he is not hungry. He reaches the cusp of the shallows when the sun is still low in the early sky. A gang of sharks are loitering in the waters above the steep drop, glorying in kills made at dawn. The wise choice would be to divert around them, but he is a creature of habit. He keeps the bottle close to his chest, protected by the nest of his hands, and raises his two lethal barbs. His tails cleave together and move as one unified appendage, propelling him toward the sharks with the speed of an angry dolphin. All but one of the sharks scatter; the brave loiterer is a battered old matron, her toothy hide dense with the battle-language of scars. The Sun of the Shallows unfurls his tails, using their mass to reduce his momentum and increase his apparent size. The old matron surges toward him, then jets to the side at the last moment, circling around in an attempt to get her jaws on one of those feathery fins. She is fast, for a shark, but the Sun is faster. With a twist of his tails, he whirls around draws a painful, bloody line across the old matron’s right gills with one of his barb-arms. She churns the water as she flees, indignant but unwilling to die. The Sun of the Shallows continues his journey into the deep, the bottle clutched against his heart. Deeper, darker waters present problems his barbed arms can’t solve. As a shallows-dweller, his eyes are adapted to sun and starlight. He’s not suited for the cold temperatures or ever-increasing gradient of pressure. He cups his tails before him, creating a basket into which he deposits the bottle full of air and surface water. His hands freed, he begins to draw a waterknot. All water caries a memory of the heights and depths of its past. The deepest abyssal current knows what it is to fall as rain, and the fastest-moving rivers know the deep sleep of the glacier. The Sun of the Shallows draws out threads of memories with the graceful motions of his hands and the curling articulations of his fingers. The pressure on his body diminishes until he floats in a bubble of water that remembers the surface, a protective artifice that allows him to descend to bone-crushing depths. The bottom of the ocean is black as the pit of a shark’s eye so the Sun must follow the faint emanations of heat and movement from near the unseen seafloor. When he sees the long, jagged slash of red far below, he knows he has returned to the home of his heart. The vent schisms the seafloor, a bolt of molten lightning trapped forever at the bottom of the world. As he draws nearer, the meager volcanic light paints his lover’s countenance in a red, shadow-pitted glow. Her skin is the grey of dead whale flesh, her face pillowed in the sprawling, chitinous mass of her hair. Each long tendril of hair extends up into sheathes of tubeworms, thousands of them in all, swaying in the upwelling of hot water from the vent. The Moon of the Deep gazes up at the Sun of the Shallows. She smiles with tectonic slowness. The Sun moves as close to the Moon as he can without encompassing her in the bubble of lighter water; as he needs the shallows, the Moon of the Deep requires the crushing pressure of the depths. They work together to create another waterknot, her hands moving with ponderous grace while his dance like exuberant dolphins. They construct between them a gradient of pressures, braiding together the memories of the water into a tunnel. All the while, the Sun cups the glass bottle in the bowl of his tails. When the waterknot is complete, he uncorks the bottle and releases the surface water into the passage between them. It congeals into an eel-like shape, almost transparent except for where light from the vent glints off the distortion of water, and drifts downward, pulled in by the Moon’s beckoning magics. She coaxes the small mass of water into the space between her hands and listens as the water whispers of new memories from the top of the world. Woven among those memories is something else: the love of a Sun for the Moon below.
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Dec 24, 2018 00:17
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I have given this some thought. Here are the issues: 1) Attrition. There are only so many people on this site, or who are willing to join this site, who also want to write short fiction. There's an even smaller number who want to write short fiction on a weekly basis, and among those people, many of them are reluctant to repeatedly receive our style of critique. Also related to the dwindling membership of SA in general. 2) Apathy/general inability to participate. A lot of people I talk to express they're glad TD is trundling on without them; the sentiment seems to be that TD will always be there for them to come back to later. These threads have been around for over 6 years so it's easy to assume they will continue on regardless of any individual person's participation. 3) Inconsistent ads on SA. This is partially my fault since I lapsed in buying ads (my TD budget is pretty small ), but I think there is definitely a correlation between ad purchases and increased participation. This is the easiest problem to solve, if we are so inclined. 4) Lack of engagement with other subforums. In the past, we've got new writers from Games and E/N. It's been a while since any of the other subforums had a reason to think about TD. 5) Stratification of writers. Back when TD was a young blood sport, there was a huge, diverse number of writers and big weeks meant a variety of winners and losers. Now that we are mostly populated by a group of regulars, the same people tend to wind up at the bottom of the pile over and over again. This, I imagine, produces a lot of frustration. 6) TD worked. A lot of people are currently working on other projects, having gotten what they wanted out of TD. 7) General baggage. When a lot of people do something for a long time, feelings and expectations become entrenched. Whether intentional or not, this makes things more impenetrable to new people. Honestly, I think a lot of these problems are out of anyone's control. We can't make SA a more populous place and I'm not sure how you would incentivize people working on other projects to come back to a weekly flash fiction contest. What I think we can do: 1) More ads. Duh. I will buy some at the start of the new year, but I'm a poor idiot so it would help if other people pitched in. 2) Forumsdome. Running a Thunderdome-style competition in a busy forum might garner some interest in people who don't otherwise visit CC (or look at ads). This would be most effective if done in coordination with the mods of whatever subforum. 3) Re-evaluate the format. I'm hesitant to suggest this because this competition is what it is because we've stuck to a few pretty simple rules over the years. On the other hand, TD has changed a lot on its own from the years of "I WILL poo poo DOWN YOUR GAPING NECKHOLE, YOU BURBLING FOUNT OF WORDSPITTLE." This could come in a lot of forms. One option, similar to what Exmond proposed, is to have occasional special weeks where people are allowed to submit excerpts from existing projects. Another option is to have events that last for multiple weeks (either in tandem with weekly prompts or as a special event [though this might present an archiving challenge]). We could also host events that are purely constructive and less competitive, to help writers who are stuck in the stratification effect I mentioned above. Or maybe something I haven't thought of yet. I personally an leery of deviating too hard from the current format (especially only a few days before the new thread goes up), but maybe in the coming year it's something we can develop collaboratively. 4) Accept the smaller numbers and tailor weeks more to the individuals signed up. This would be up to individual judges and could take a lot of forms. Things like giving people different win/loss criteria, offering time-sensitive word count opportunities, and so on, are easier when there are fewer people. Also, if both the judges and participants have been around for a while, the participants could be challenged based on strengths/weaknesses in their writing. 5) Mentoring. It could be fun to have a week (or weeks) where people who have done well team up with people who haven't done well (or who personally feel they would gain something from working with someone who gets frequent positive results). I personally like the idea of a week where longtime regulars help newer/greener writers, under pain of possibly getting a loss on their own records. Something like that. This might just be me, though, so I'm not really putting this forward as a plausible thing. 6) Word of mouth. If people are inclined, it might be possible to join other writing communities and tell non-SA writers about TD. This could also be a huge waste of time and effort because of the paywall and SA's general reputation. 7) More in-thread engagement. Traditionally, talking about TD has been done offsite. Maybe it would help to have intervals where it's okay to talk in-depth about writing and/or crits in the thread. This has the downside of burying 'in' posts and stories. One way around that is to as people to include a specific forums smiley or whatever in their signup post, but I don't know if extra thread chatter is worth it. My thinking with this idea is that if people feel like they can have a conversation about writing in TD, they might feel more inclined to write for TD. Anyway, this is just me spitballing. I really enjoy TD and the network of writers I now have access to has been monstrously helpful in my own writing journey. More than anything, I want the opportunity to continue helping people write. TD is a forums tradition at this point, but that doesn't make it immune to the necessity for change and reevaluation. Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Dec 25, 2018 |
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Dec 25, 2018 19:22
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 don't forget to sign up this week I will if I can get my brawl done before the weekendI'm curious if there is anyone who mostly lurks, or participates rarely, who wants to weigh in on 1) crit rates and 2) the culture. Currently we are looking at over 16000 crits/comments for about 6000 stories. Also taking into account the fact that crits weren't as much the norm in the beginning, most of those crits have happened in latter day Thunderdome. It is my opinion that, short of hassling judges one-on-one, there is no meaningful way to enforce crits without forcing people to toxx to judge, or whatever, which is never going to happen. It's also my opinion that if you post a story here, you are more likely to receive critique than not. Culturally: I'm interested for someone to show me, in quotes, where in-jokes and offsite nonsense have impacted the thread. Again, if anyone is lurking and thinking "boy, I'd sign up for Thunderdome but they keep making this joke about abonened bunkers so it's not for me" then I would love to hear your input. The only thing I can think of in that regard is that it might be good to make the 2019 thread title something that says more plainly "this is a flash fiction contest". Considering this competition had the highest rate of new signups when it was still a loving hot mess of kayfabe and overt in-jokes, I'm struggling to see where in the past couple years new folks might've been MORE alienated than when TDers were talking about 'word cunts' and telling each other to drink bleach. I'm open to being wrong about this, but I feel like the changes we need to make are more along the lines of engagement/revitalizing the format with cool new poo poo. Some sort of yearly leader board for 2019 accomplishments would be cool, but Kaishai also has poo poo to do that isn't TD data entry, so maybe that's something someone could take upon themselves.
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Dec 25, 2018 20:20
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The thing about Discord is that none of the people who are/have been TD admins (insofar as there is any admining to do) want to run a server. There is nothing stopping someone else from starting their own, I suppose, but I'm not sure how much in-thread participation that would generate. I think it would be good if people who want to be proactive maybe list off what they're willing to do; for example, Tyrannosaurus offering to keep a year-specific scoreboard. I think there is a lot of potential for that concept. What I am personally willing to do next year: -Pay for ads. -If people want to brainstorm with me, I'd be willing to run/help run some sort of contest in another forum. Sadly I really only post in GBS, which is a dubious place to try running a fiction contest. I'm willing to give it a shot if Sebmojo wants to run it by the mods first, though. -If you are a judge and want to run a big-rear end gimmicky week, hit me up! Part of the fun of TD of course is thinking up a prompt and forcing people to write your heart's desire, but I think we've had a lot of success with "event" weeks. I'm usually happy to help and I'd love to try out some of the ideas from my last post. -Run TD-sponsored events in their own threads. If there is an interest for like, TD-brand crits for longer contests or existing works, I would love to get my finger in that pie. -hassle people who have lapsed. You know who you are. Don't flake off like so much dead skin, we need you yes YOU to write stories. -Recommit to the crit. 2018 was a ghastly, horrible year for me, but I think starting fresh with a new year will give me the psychological kick in the pants needed to be a productive TD citizen.
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Dec 25, 2018 23:06
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This is a great discord for general writing but it's not a Thunderdome group and as a mod I have to ask that we don't encourage it to become one.
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Dec 25, 2018 23:53
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People are all making really good points. For a long time, I've wanted to build some sort of zine or offsite publication that brings the TD style to more people, and gives them a publicly palatable URL to send to their mom or whatever when their work goes up. This is something so far outside of my limited expertise that I'm not sure it's worth pursuing it myself. However, if someone wanted to talk about how to make it happen, I'd definitely want to be involved. Going into the new year, here is what I would like to see happen: 1) Post the thread like normal, with basically the same rules and expectations. Put up ads because even though we've tapped most of the blood on SA, I've been told by many people that the ads often remind them to come back. 2) Concurrent with the new thread, post a fun, lighthearted contest specifically for polishing existing works. The contest could have multiple winners for categories like "most improved second draft", "most words cut", and of course best overall story. The goal would be prepping people's stories for submission and hopefully publication. Stories could be from TD or they could be personal projects. If needed, there could be multiple categories, so that flash fiction isn't going up against 5000 word stories, or whatever. I don't think doing things like this will "save" thunderdome from attrition, but it creates new ways for the same people to engage with their writing and this awesome network of writers. 3) I really like the 2019 scoreboard idea so I'd be interested in seeing how Trex wants to track/format that. 4) I would like to see experienced writers engaging more with newer or greener writers. Perhaps we could come up with a list of people who are willing to help. I'd certainly put myself on it. 5) Magazine rushes have been super successful in the past; maybe we could have regular TD-sponsored contests with submission prep in mind (like my idea above). Now, re: discord. I said it earlier but I'll say it again: If people want it bad enough, then someone with the inclination can certainly set up a TD discord. I don't want to do it. Kaishai doesn't want to do it. I don't think any of the people who've thus far modded IRC want to do it, but if a bunch of people can ONLY talk about TD on discord, then those people should have a discord. There is absolutely nothing stopping this from happening, although there are definitely people in IRC who, for whatever reason, don't like discord. Still, if it means more people can feel engaged, then by all means, go for it and see what happens.
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Dec 26, 2018 20:28
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Flesnolk posted:Wouldn’t that basically split the community though? The community is effectively split between people on IRC and people not on IRC. I'm an internet Old so I like IRC and its aged simplicity, but if another discussion platform would aggregate people in an easy-to-find place, why not? Also, it's not impossible to use both unless you are IDK pathologically unable to click a few extra times and log into both platforms. I don't want to "move" to discord, but if it's something a lot of people are asking for, then someone should make it happen. Preferably someone who has admined a discord before. e: Saucy_Rodent posted:I'm new to the forum; PWoT (the Cracked forums) shut down and old-school message boards are the only way I know how to internet. Most of my posts have been in this thread or the spooktober contest. Everyone talks about how SA is dying but the fact that some threads get a thousand posts in a day is mind-boggling to me. Same with a story contest that can reliably get ten entries weekly. I wasn't there for the Glory Days, but what I see looks incredible. This is cool, thanks for saying 
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Dec 26, 2018 20:55
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SITTINGICHI BRAWL ENTRYsebmojo posted:Yoru Here Brawl A Walk Around the Block 1000 words Oliver is missing. I power off my ancient-rear end Samsung phone, open its casing, yank out the battery, wait ten seconds, then put the whole thing back together again. Oliver says it helps, but only sometimes. ‘Only sometimes’ is enough. When he’s gone longer than an hour or two, my hands start working of their own accord: disassembling and reassembling, my fingers describing a silent prayer with every familiar movement. Today is a ‘sometimes’ day. The third time I reassemble the phone, Oliver is there as soon as it boots up. His chat icon—a picture of our deceased golden retriever, Boris—appears in the bottom left of the homescreen. *There* you are, he sends through the app. I could say the same thing to you! I force a smile at the phone’s camera. It was all swirling grey fog on this side, he sends. I kept seeing things—darker spots, like shadows in the grey. I thought maybe I’d finally wound up in hell. You are not going to hell, I send, then add an emoji with an extremely no-nonsense expression to underscore my point. As long as I can still talk to you, I know I’m not damned yet. My teeth clench tightly enough to creak in their sockets. I want to cut open reality, dissect it until I find whichever purgatorial pocket contains my dead boyfriend’s soul, and get him the gently caress back. Or maybe I want to go back in time and ignore that initial message; any sane person would’ve dismissed it as a scam or a cruel prank, but I couldn’t ignore the profile picture. The photo of Boris was the very last one I’d taken before euthanasia. On the car ride to the veterinarian's office, he’d raised his head once—just once—and yawned one last big aroo. I snapped the picture while Oliver drove, both of us thinking the old dog’s death was the worst thing that could happen to us. That last photo only existed on my phone. I’d never shared it to social media; the emotions in that moment belonged to Oliver and I. Oliver knew it was the only thing that would get my attention after he died, and he was right. . Work is total garbage today, I send. When I’m at the office, it’s easy to pretend Oliver is at home, absently replying to me while he folds towels or whatever. His reply is instant. What’s going on? Oh, well you know how I told you about my supervisor… I type out a lengthy scenario, and for a moment i’m totally absorbed in the sweet banality of venting trite bullshit to my boyfriend. ...like, it’s totally first world problems, but that poo poo still wears me down, you know? I say in conclusion. Oliver? OLIVER? Oliver responds as I’m peeling off the phone’s protective outer case. Sorry, things just got a bit fuzzy. I’m here. He continues when I don’t reply: Just think of it like, sometimes I go out of cell signal range. That’s normal, right? Even when I was alive, you couldn’t see me every second of every day. Thatwsa diferent. I mash the words out with my thumbs. Back then i knew u would be back not fade out into some fuckass purgatory. I sound like an idiot high schooler but my hands are shaking from anger and emotional exhaustion. Except you didn’t ‘know’ I’d be back, he says, and even though he’s a whole reality away, I can hear the gentle inflections of his voice. Because one day, I walked out the door and didn’t come back. Office life hums on around me to the tune of the over-enthusiastic air conditioner; my own grey pocket universe with its grey carpets and grey formica desks and grey people. I bite my knuckle hard enough to draw out the tang of blood so I don’t start keening. Anyway, he sends, it’s...getting better on this side. I’ve found my way through purgatory. Something like liquid nitrogen shoots through my veins at those words. Oliver, what does that mean? You have to understand, Oliver says, no one has done what we’re doing right now. Maybe I love you more than anyone has ever loved another person. Maybe I’m too attached to life among the living. No one can explain why we’re able to talk like this. Just duckign say what your going to say. I can feel him softening the blow, coating poison in powdered sugar. I made it to the other side. The grey place is just transitional. But where I am now, it’s—it’s everything. It’s beyond words. It’s everything at once, and it’s all wonderful. I can’t hold the agony in anymore. Stuffing the phone into the pocket of my trousers, I speedwalk to the restroom, which is blessedly empty. I sit on the tiled floor with my knees pulled up to my chest, back to the wall, body shuddering, but now that I’m alone I can’t make the tears come. I’ve met someone, Oliver says. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. She thinks it’s best that I...let you live your life. Without me haunting you. I should just loving die, my thumbs type of their own accord. You shouldn’t, and you won’t, Oliver says with that distant, palpable gentleness. You don’t know that. It takes Oliver a long time to compose his next message. I do know. Because the person I met is...she’s you. You and I were never apart. We have always been here, in this place, together. Boris is here, too! Life—it’s just a walk around the block. You’ll see. I can’t. Will I suffer very much before I see you again? Did she...I….tell you? A bit, Oliver admits. But it’ll make your homecoming that much sweeter, when it’s your time. Trust me. Is this goodbye? I ask. No, Oliver says, it’s ‘see you later’. The tears finally come, but I smile into the camera one last time. See you later. Maybe I can.
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Dec 29, 2018 05:05
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sebmojo posted:also: hard yes
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Jan 1, 2019 01:04
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| # ¿ Oct 16, 2024 09:26 |
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in (will take pic later since it's near midnight here) cool prompt!
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Jan 2, 2019 08:50
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