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why not i'd love to hate you all i'm third judge
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Jan 6, 2018 01:43
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| # ¿ Dec 7, 2023 04:51 |
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In, You Want It Darker.
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Jan 8, 2018 07:28
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Week 283 crits: You Should Have Killed Your Grandfather, We'd All Be Better Off That Way I went into this week not liking time travel stories, and left still not liking time travel stories. Even the good poo poo this week had paragraphs of exposition explaining how their specific time travel mechanic worked, and if I wanted that, I could go read TV Tropes. But I knew it'd be like that going in, so enough general whining. Let's get to specific whining. sandnavyguy - Reset Button The good news is someone else jumped on the grenade this week. The bad news is that a lot of this is a glorpy mess. The slightly less bad news is that it's a glorpy mess in a very newbie sort of way, the way a lot of people are when they wander in with a gleam in their eye and their pockets full of questionable words. Cut the first third or so of the story, start with your weird leprechaun guy, because he's the thing that makes this interesting. The ending feels like an ironic twist slapped on for some kind of irony at the end, and as we all know, Ironic Twist is the worst. Also, you tend to stick sentences together. Split them up, give them space to breathe. It's a good thing to check There were other weird bits that stuck out to me. "Which the fraud had embezzled" is weird, because the context of embezzlement makes me think fraud, the crime, and not fraud, a person who's a liar. And he seems to be embezzling...reports? I don't think that's something you can embezzle. Anyway welcome to the dome, you didn't lose first-time, so that's an accomplishment, or else the judges felt sorry for you like some kinda big dumb babies. Either way, congrats. Yoruichi - Time, Fast and Slow The style and the plot here go together like chocolate syrup and chicken ramen. You've chosen a modern, realist, personal style for most of it, but the characters act like they're in a fable. So when the witch curses the guy to be late for everything because he was late for her, it seems more like she's a dick than some mythical irony. I also cannot remember any feature about your protagonist other than he got mopey about being late, so that's probably a problem. You were going for a cool idea, and I actually didn't hate the way you used the time travel prompt, but it felt at points that you had a cool idea and then tried to beat it into shape with a crowbar. derp - Slice of Life This was basically the only good "technical" use of time travel this week, because it's presented not as exposition, but as the protagonist's efforts to cope with his situation. Some of the other judges went "nuhh but why is the girl different", and please see my previous point about the judges being big dumb babies. You managed to make this fun to read through the voice, which was frank and immediate in a week of explaining. I think that "sad dude gets saved by a quasi-magical lady" is probably a TD trope by this point, though. Thranguy - Year Zero From time to time, I got the feeling that your protagonist was less a teenager and more a fourth grader. Mostly in the beginning, which means you were probably trying to figure out how to fit the tone before you slid into it more comfortably by the end. This one's also got a explaining, but I appreciated that it's mostly a personal story about this girl affected by time travel. And you managed to make the explainy bits a little less boring with the idea that the future has to repeatedly colonize the past, and they're starting to lose direction. It felt longer than it needed to be, but I'm the idiot for deciding to judge a week without looking at the word count, I guess. Jay W. Friks - Hunt the Lines This was a mess. It's set in some kind of fantasy world, but it's never clear what the fantasy world is like, exactly. It's got royals and rebels but also gatling guns, so I guess it's...Edwardian? Maybe? The way that it jumps back and forth wasn't clear at first, and it wasn't helped by the issues with proofing. Random words were capitalized so I thought, like, maybe the Wolf is the Shade but no, the Shade's a different thing. Also, your whole story's "point", as much as there is one, hinges on some rules lawyering that zips by so fast I missed it on my first read. (That is, the Shade takes your identity, but he argues his identity has changed over the cycles, so that now he's a different person and so the Shade has to wait until his NEW identity fades etc) flerp - Last Records etc This was simple, but I liked it mainly on the merits of its inevitability. You gave a lot of character to something that's explicitly constrained by its programming, and while the other judges were babies about "nuhhhh but it's barely got any time travel" I really appreciated the fact that it's not something that's obviously going to work, and it ends without knowing whether it does. Antivehicular - Against Oblivion I swear to god, something about this story is teflon to my brain. Twice during judging I forgot what this was about, and now writing these crits, I also forgot which one this is. It's the fairy one. Okay, yeah. This was really, really explainy to me, and I was expecting, I don't know, more to happen? Elf finds girl, elf makes decoy girl, girl joins elf. The other judges liked this more than I did. I don't want to be the one going "but where's the action???" because clearly that wasn't the kind of story you wanted to write, but this felt more like you were concerned with high-concept musings, which I guess the other judges were way into. Sitting Here - Ukranian Dream Baby Visions Like a lot of the stories this week, I think the ending kinda splatters onto the windshield and then just sloughs off. The way that it builds, I was expecting there to be something kind of more going on, some big pivotal thing in her past but then it's really just about her reliving a moment in her life and wishing she could do it differently. Also like a lot of the stories this week, I feel like this would have worked better at half the length so it could spend most of its time focusing on the idea of revisiting old bits of your life and wanting to do things differently.
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Jan 10, 2018 23:38
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https://thunderdome.cc/?story=6269
Djeser fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Jan 15, 2018 05:50
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flerp posted:i agree, people should stop posting like poo poo but then how would you post? 
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Jan 16, 2018 00:45
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same
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Jan 16, 2018 19:23
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Thunderdome 285: Tempus Fuckit This week, you're going to write a story that looks back across the vast gulf of time. When I say 'vast', I'm talking thousands of years. Forgotten, distant history. Real life is full of this. Egyptians worshipped gods so ancient they didn't even know what they were, just that they were real old, and real holy. Archaeologists dug up Babylonian ruins and found an ancient museum, where ancient archaeologists had preserved artifacts from the ruins they'd dug up. Hell, if you want to get real vast, At The Mountains of Madness is about unfathomably ancient civilizations. Any setting you like is fine, real-world or invented. Any time period you want to choose works too; there's always been a distant past I don't care whether the bulk of the story is in the (relative) past or present: the story of an archaeologist's discovery works just as well as an ancient story framed by a modern translator's commentary, or a transmission received amid radio static by a probe in another galaxy, or whatever dumb bullshit you want to pull. If you want to be an insufferable goon about it, I consider about five hundred years to be the lower bounds for "vast gulf of time". Word count: 1800 maximum Signups end 11 PM Pacific Friday night Entries close 11 PM Pacific Sunday night Judges: Djeser CantDecideOnAName Exmond Entrants: sandnavyguy Uranium Phoenix CascadeBeta flerp  Thranguy Antivehicular Unfunny Poster Fuzzy Mammal Fleta McGurn Jay W. Friks Obliterati sebmojo crain Bad Seafood Okua HereComesEverybody Deltasquid Sham bam bamina! QuoProQuid crabrock RandomPaul Chairchucker Djeser fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Jan 21, 2018 |
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Jan 17, 2018 03:42
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Djeser posted:Thunderdome 285: Tempus Fuckit Quotepostin for new page. Also if you toxx I'll give you a picture of a cool hat. Not for your story or anything, just a nice jpeg for you to save.
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Jan 17, 2018 03:55
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Here's a cool hat! 
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Jan 17, 2018 06:52
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Woah I didn't even see that one. To make up for it here are two pictures of hats.  
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Jan 17, 2018 10:29
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Unfunny Poster posted:Sorry for this dumb question, maybe I'm just too drained mentally from work today which is why I'm asking, but to clarify the main prompt: it's more or less asking for a story that deals with something relating to history. Be it an obscure piece of history people don't know about or even a myth/religion people believed in at one point in time. Right? I'm just a little confused by the phrasing "looking across the vast history", is that meant for all the stories submitted or just our own individual one? What I want is a story where the vastness of time is meaningful somehow. I don't care if you make your story about 'history' or not.
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Jan 17, 2018 19:30
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RandomPauI posted:Does a story count as "look across the vast gulf of time" if it's about someone trying to get to a relic before it'd be destroyed? If the vast age of the relic is meaningful, then sure. Have this cool hat! 
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Jan 19, 2018 08:33
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djeser, on tuesday posted:i'll make a weird prompt, that way like six people will enter
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Jan 19, 2018 23:03
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crabrock posted:i Sitting Here posted:d same
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Jan 20, 2018 07:19
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fjgj
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Jan 22, 2018 09:59
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Thunderdome Week 285 Results This was a week with a lot of good ideas and a lot of mostly-passable prose. I wasn't sure what I'd get when I made that prompt and it seems the answer was "sci-fi about global warming." But I'll save that for the crit post because it's time for the results. Some things should stay forgotten Letters of the Confessor of Schwerkraftfälle was so slight I almost passed it by, but my fellow judges were less-than-pleased with its apparent lack of, let us say, "a point". RandomPauI takes home a dishonorable mention. Choon-Hee & The Gwoemul tried to impress us with a retelling of the foundation myth of Gojoseon, wrapped in a frame story about a young girl that similarly left us wondering what, exactly, the point was. For these and crimes against footnotes, Unfunny Poster is our unfortunate loser. Better luck next time! Flinging a light into the future Boy, do I just have a parcel of HMs to pass out. Another Turn of the Wheel by Antivehicular charmed my fellow judges with its manipulator-limbs and distant predecessor races. Cenotaph by Thranguy told a transhumanist tale of exploration and hope in a galaxy full of ruin. Bridging the Gulf by Uranium Phoenix managed to balance out explaining how his story's Protagonist Race™ actually came from its Predecessors™ with some human (arthroid?) emotion. The Men Who Lived Forever by crabrock was probably the best Black Mirror episode I've seen this year. And the winner, whose story took me three tries before I figured out what was happening, but once I did struck right to the heart of everything I wanted from this week, is Acceptance by Bad Seafood. My thanks to my fellow judges and my condolences to Bad Seafood. Djeser fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Jan 23, 2018 |
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Jan 23, 2018 11:41
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Only for you would I lay my life on the line.
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Jan 23, 2018 19:39
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https://thunderdome.cc/?story=6315
Djeser fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Jan 29, 2018 05:43
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fast, judging! good; judging?
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Jan 30, 2018 07:06
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In with King Henry by Steeleye Span I was a weird kid 
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Feb 8, 2018 18:45
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parotm
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Feb 13, 2018 19:17
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I think TD focuses on a narrative arc for a few reasons. One is because it's an amateur fiction competition. The majority of domers are nerds who post on dead gay comedy forums and want to hone their fiction skills. A narrative arc, "telling a story", is a simple task that you don't need a ton of experience in writing to accomplish. A second reason is because that's what most Thunderdome stories are trying to do in the first place. We don't get a ton of non-narrative fiction. Only rarely have I seen something that was a bad story, but a good prose piece. It's much more likely to find things that try to be a story and fail at it than things that aren't trying to be a story at all. Third, and maybe the biggest reason, is that when a TD piece slips up, it's very easy for a judge to go to "well it wasn't a good story". Which is a legitimate criticism, because it's a concrete thing you can look at and evaluate, but it does create the sense that TD is only about stories instead of fiction in a broader sense. Ultimately like anything else in TD it comes down to the judges for that week and what they're interested in seeing. Some judges are more strict about wanting to see a narrative structure, and others don't care as much as long as they enjoy the prose.
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Feb 18, 2018 23:00
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In with my old highschool nickname White Hole
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Feb 20, 2018 04:58
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[i tut severely about genre fiction until i suffocate underneath my seventeen turtleneck sweaters] in
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Mar 21, 2018 00:12
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Exmond posted:Watch out for this guy, he edits other people's posts and puts his bad words ontop of them. luckily your posts are safe cause there's no way to make them worse
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Mar 24, 2018 00:08
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please fix your computer, it seems ill
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Mar 24, 2018 00:16
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In and yes, that is Emma Watson as an ant, by DeviantArt user dnshsjdvdhdgdbdyd
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Mar 27, 2018 04:46
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be nice on the kiwis they get dizzy from being upside-down the whole time
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Mar 30, 2018 17:30
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Bubble Bobby posted:In, a contest where people go back in time to kill hitler if this flies i'm in for a contest where people go back in time to gently caress hitler don't worry, it won't be erotica. if you get a boner it's on you
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Apr 6, 2018 19:12
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https://thunderdome.cc/?story=6481
Djeser fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Apr 9, 2018 01:26
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Chili posted:Also, wtf where is pomp what a terrible circumstance
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Apr 16, 2018 21:18
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Exmond posted:"Oh no," the T-rex said, flailing its tiny arms. "This is T-rexible!" don't sign yur posts
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Apr 16, 2018 22:45
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Flesnolk posted:While I'm not totally sure I get what you're asking for, I'll give it a shot. "write a story where idris elba could play one of the characters"
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Apr 17, 2018 00:23
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lol in, gimme that good stuff tyranno
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Apr 17, 2018 01:50
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In,
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May 8, 2018 01:45
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https://thunderdome.cc/?story=6552
Djeser fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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May 13, 2018 17:40
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In
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May 22, 2018 06:53
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https://thunderdome.cc/?story=6580
Djeser fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 06:11
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Thunderdome Week 304: Magic of Bronze and Stone This week it's time for genre fiction and that genre is ancient fantasy. Anything from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic city-states to Bronze Age empires goes. Both real-world and invented settings are allowed. The theme of the week, since you like that sort of stuff, is discovery. (I'm not going to get literal about this, so don't fret.) Flash rules this week will consist of artifacts from the pre-modern world. Word count: 1200 words maximum Signups end: 11 PM Pacific, Friday June 1st Submissions close: 11 PM Pacific, Sunday, June 3rd Judges: Djeser Flesnolk Jon Joe Since the words of the oracle are of utmost importance, TDbot will serve as a special auxiliary judge this week, and will offer insight (of a kind) on each story. Entrants: Thranguy (Bì disks) Hawklad (Great Lyre of Ur) Antivehicular (Baghdad Battery) Solitair (Nebra sky disk) sandnavyguy (Bull-Leaping Fresco) ThirdEmperor (Stone ships) flerp (Nimrud lens) SurreptitiousMuffin Jay W. Friks (Ishtar Gate) Uranium Phoenix (The Book of Silk) magnificent7 cptn_dr (Señor de las Limas) sebmojo Yoruichi Chuf (Antikythera Mechanism) Djeser fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Jun 2, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 17:36
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| # ¿ Dec 7, 2023 04:51 |
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Thranguy posted:In, flash. quote:Bì are round jade discs with holes in their centres. When buried in the earth, the minerals change them to be multi-colored. The original function and significance of the bi are unknown, as the Neolithic cultures have left no written history. From these earliest times they were buried with the dead, as a sky symbol, accompanying the dead into the after world or "sky", with the cong which connected the body with the earth. Hawklad posted:In. Flash me. quote:The Lyres of Ur or Harps of Ur are considered to be the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments. Leonard Woolley, a British archaeologist, discovered the lyres amongst the bodies of ten women in the Royal cemetery at Ur. One body was even said to be laying against the lyre with her skeletal hand placed where the strings would have been. Antivehicular posted:In and flash, please quote:The Baghdad Battery or Parthian Battery is a set of three artifacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron. It was hypothesized by some researchers that the object functioned as a galvanic cell, possibly used for electroplating, or some kind of electrotherapy, but there is no electrogilded object known from this period. The artifacts strongly resemble another type of object with a known purpose – storage vessels for sacred scrolls from nearby Seleucia on the Tigris.
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May 29, 2018 18:32
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