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Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
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Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fswi3IsxGUSpvPcYqDBgGwPf-Q5vTegx/view?usp=sharing

I like this poem and I like our archivist, so here's a reading for Kaishai's "Favor Fortune"

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Part 2 of my King in Yellow crits includes "Carcosa" by Captain_indigo, "His name was Natale" by Deltasquid, and "Sleep Song Somniloquy" by magnificent7. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eEQJSPQStODHaZ8jTVpnvDI9aVZ7srFy/view?usp=sharing

Stay tuned for more.

Previous crits can be found here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kFRROZ9IgLHX1aGLiUK8qnBv8Xt4T8yu/view?usp=sharing

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer
As we all wake up from our sparkly holiday hangovers, it's time to start thinking about the new year and new beginnings. Many of us have all agonized over the perfect first sentence to our next works of staggering genius, so as a New Year's gift, I'm going to be giving you the first sentences of your story! But, y'know, we live in the darkest timeline, and that means you don't get good first sentences. Your task will be to create good prose from sublimely bad starts.

When you sign up for this week, pick a basic fiction genre (SF, Fantasy, Mystery/Crime, etc.), or "non-genre" if you're feeling indecisive and want something with no implied genre. I'll assign you a sentence or short passage from the Lyttle Lytton contest, a contest that collects attempts to write the worst possible opening to an imaginary novel. You must begin your story with the Lyttle Lytton entry I assign, and you must somehow go on to make a non-lovely story out of it. You're not required to completely copy the writing style of your start (because that would lead to be a pretty crap story), or write exactly the story your start implies, but it needs to be a real part of your narrative --no cutesy "meta" copouts like having the line be from a bad novel your main character is reading, for example. Embrace the garbage and make something brilliant, or at least less garbage.

~From the original post for Lyttle week

Exmond, where does it say I can't add to the sentence? The rules state I don't need to write about what the first sentence implies, and I didn't make it a quote from another story, I'd say it followed the week's rules as they were laid out.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Alright. Let's do this. (I'll :toxx: till you drop eggsman)

Jay W. Friks fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jan 7, 2018

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer
Exmond, to me, imagination can be

"How you work with something that is already explained, and how it is NOT explained."

The latter requiring two doses of that precious miiiiind tonic-as you need REAL imagination to see the holes in the rules of our masters.

I USE THOSE HOLES TO gently caress UP poo poo CAUSE I AM THE IMAGINATION.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer

Exmond posted:

I have no idea why JayFriks takes offence to my crit (Maybe he should post some more) but sure, Im in :toxx:

Take your imagination and imagine having thicker skin JayFriks.

Ohhh. Someones getting maaaad. Seems like you're the one taking offense there eckmin. All because you got slapped a few times for some stories (which c'mon, I gotta higher fist to story ratio than you and I'm not picking holes in every goddamn criticism I get like ---some people--- cough) doesn't mean you gotta go around finding ways to release your aggression.

But don't worry, I can take a lot of punishment.

I can dish it out too.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer
Hunt the Lines (# 2010)

In my darkest dreams, I hear the voice of the Shade in the pit. I'm there again, crushed under the body of the wolf. The Shade crawls to me, making promises about another life. How I could live again and do things differently.

I can barely see it in the dripping dark of the chasm. It holds out a scarecrow of a hand with something inhuman moving inside the palm.

~

Light breaches the manor windows and my eyelids, warm from the glare of dawn, force themselves open.

"Good morning Master Thane." My manservant Emilio is standing by with my robe in hand and a stack of rolled up missives under his left arm.

I ignore the robe. I work hard on my form and I have a vain obsession with strangers seeing my body. I wash my face in the basin beside my bed. Outside my window, a fresh summer rain has made the green grounds around my new manor sparkle with dew.

My manservant hands me one of the missives. It’s from Captain Leguarde.

Honorable Lord of Veng, the rebels have not been dealt with as I'd previously thought. A remnant of them has snuck into the capitol and I fear are assembling to hunt you down personally. I urge you to retreat to safer bearings until my soldiers return from the border.

"Sir, is everything alright?" My manservant asks.

"Everything is fine. Have my groundskeepers assemble the Gatling, I want to try it out before the day ends."

~

My servants assembled it in the place where I’d held a Garden Party in celebration of taking over Veng. My manservant heaved the rotating cylinder of the Gatling onto the wheelbase and two others bolted it down.

"Good work. You’re all relieved of duty. Take what you can from the house as payment for your loyalty. I know many of you were affected by my campaign that ended with the former lords' death and I understand if do not want to be slaughtered by the rebels for my ambition."

My instinct about their waning loyalty was correct, every single one of my staff save my manservant fled into the manor and rode off on one of my horses. Some with bags of gold, silverware and other valuables, some who just wanted to get out as fast as they could.

I pulled a chain of bullets from the crate and fed it into the Gatling. In my mind's eye, I saw entrails in my hand instead.

~

I'm hanging onto the wolf’s innards trying to not fall into the chasm beneath me. My hand keeps slipping on the gore, I swing upwards with a mighty heave and jam my broken bayonet into the ribcage of the beast to get a firmer grip. The branches impaling the wolf above snap forward and we both fall into the darkness.

~

"Sir?"

I remember what time it is. My memories that were once so close to me have become hallucinations. I think it’s due to them having their death throes. The hunt feels far away but I'm going to have to kill the wolf once more, I have questions for the Shade in the chasm.

“I ordered you to leave Emilio, get going."

His posture straightened as he put on airs of Loyalty, "I will not abandon my liege." he said with all the bravado of his generation.

I know he's faking. Emilio's son was killed when I sacked the manor the first time. He's always had a deep resentment of me and hides it behind some old world butler facade. But I’ll let him kill me this time. I killed him last time and he deserves vengeance for all his hard work. I’d made a rule a long time ago that no matter how much of a demon I became, all the people I met would have at least one satisfying ending.

"Fine. You can man the crank. I want to give that bitch daughter a homecoming gift she'll never forget."

His eyes twitch at my insult of the former Lord's heir. She was the one leading the rebels. I had found that out in my last life before being blown up by her soldiers. She was able to hide so well because she was relying on former vassals of her father. Vassals who owned businesses and property in Veng that could keep a whole brigade hidden.

Torches appeared in the waning light. I armed the Gatling and Emilio pushed his revolver into my right temple.

"Die for the sake of my son."

I smirk, tasting the pleasure to come. Ever since I ate the Shades flesh, I was gifted with the knowledge that death is orgasmic and Emilio was going to pop my cherry this time.

He pulled back the hammer and pressed the trigger.

*Click*

My face and penis drooped in disappointment, "Emilio. Of all the stupid things, did you forget to load your gun?"

In the shadow of dusk, I could see his face pale over and a deep self-shame creep into every wrinkle of his skin.

"How could I screw this up so badly..." He whimpered.

“Good question.” I sigh as I pull out my own revolver to blow his brains out with.

Hard work or not, I can’t stand stupidity. Miranda appears with her allies, she rides on top of a white stallion. She is the picture of revolution, If I had more time, I’d paint her. Instead, I mow her and her men down with the Gatling. The green grass near the gates jumps into the air in clods. Holes pop up around the rebels as bullets pepper the fertile grounds.

Bullets rain from her legions still left standing and a single hot piece of lead sends me into thralls of ecstasy.

~

I rise through exultant sensation, through a vacuum of voices and memories. Something lays heavy on top of our world. I can see it stretching the ceiling of the sky down with its weight. It’s waiting for the dead to rise to its level. I will never know if its a merciful God or an automated handler as my ego always fall away as I’m about to breach thin layer it sits on.

I fall back into the vacuum and my spiritual body flings off shells of itself like a snake leaping backwards through its old skins. And once again I’m back in my mother's womb. Everything feels mushy. I close my ego up until the day I marry Elizabeth.

~

I become me again after my first self finishes bedding her. My memory of her and our daughter has grown hazy. I think Elizabeth is already pregnant. I’d given up on reasserting my ego immediately lifetimes ago. Contrary to what drunk old men whine about, being an adult with adult freedoms iz much more interesting than being a child again.

She swoons over me and jokes about someone's cousin at the wedding. she reminds me about the cabin I purchased from her father, wondering why I bought it.

I reply mechanically,

"We can live a better life in the wilderness. Our child will flourish in nature."

I remember feeling something akin to warmth for those words. I think I was a pagan at one time. It feels silly now to say something so cliche.

I play the part of the husband and eventually a doting father. Time passes and I teach my daughter to fire a bow. I bring home venison for my wife. I feel nothing for either of them. I’d taken a few opportunities to give them a perfect life and had grown bored of repeating that lifetimes ago.

My loss of identity was almost complete.

~

October comes. On a wet dark day, my wife and child are eaten by the Wolf. Not any normal wolf but something left over from a savage fantastical time. Just like the Shade.

I feign rage to my brothers and ask for guns and supplies saying I'll hunt the thing myself. The last time I did this, I took the guns they lent me and sold them in a far-off town. Used the money to get a bandit band together.

The wolf is in the mossiest part of the woods. I shoot it before it gets a chance to surprise me from the hanging thickets of moist leaves. That’s how it got me the first time. The broken branches it impaled itself on in my first life are left intact. I hook my rope to them and rappel into the chasm below the great willow.

"Hello, old man." echoes inside the chasm.

I ignite my lantern to reveal the being linked to this place.

It is a charred half of a full human being. Its entire front, face, chest, groin, and legs are gone. The hollow left behind is filled with dark smoky innards. The back of the creature is vaguely feminine but I surmise that might just be the way starvation has shaped it. This is the first time I’ve seen it in the light. It feels incredible to have an authentic first experience like this again.

It reaches into its insides and pulls out a chunk of smoggy flesh, crawling and crackling.

"I see you've learned about me in one of your lives. Did you read about me in an internal dictionary? I’m no demon you know. Those immature authors think if it’s dark and mysterious it’s automatically a demon.”

I pick the meat from the bony fingers of the Shade. I ate the meat in my first life when my body was broken and crushed underneath the wolf's carcass. I did it knowing the warnings the creature gave me but I couldn’t resist the promise of another chance at life.

As if reading my thoughts it repeats its warning. In my mind's eye, I’m back underneath the wolf, crying out in pain and going mute as I sense the thing that’s living with me in the chasm.

“I am a Shade. A being with no identity but still haunted by my ego. If you eat of my flesh, your ego will be tethered to your lifeline.”

It slid its finger down my palm and me and my past self both felt a simultaneous shudder of revulsion.

“No matter when and where you die, your ego will return to the beginning and give you power over as many of your lives as you want. Be warned, however, that I do this so that one day I can claim your identity for myself. The longer your ego lives beyond its time, the more your identity will decay.”

I finish its warning with what I learned from the hidden tomes the Lord of Veng hid away in his wine cellar.

“The Shade consumes the memories the ego discards and will eventually take over the identity of the one who ate the flesh.” I say.

It chuckles in a dry cracking rhythm like it had a bonfire for a mouth.

“So? You know how I do it. What are you going to do about it?” It asks.

I devour the smoggy flesh and choke it down with red wine from my waterskin.

“Which identity is the one that ate the flesh? This one or the first one?” I ask triumphantly.

It taps its nails on the bones of a long-decayed rabbit.

“The one that’s standing here now.” It says.

I smirk and ascend the rope. I call down to it from above.

“See you in a few more lifetimes old one.”

~

The Shade laid back in the soft moss. Its form had been almost complete and now even the skinny husk it had taken for itself would dissipate. But it didn’t grieve over its loss.

Afterall, it preferred the new identity it was going to take over. One day, even the meeting with the Shade would become discarded by the mans overflowing memories.

The Shade looked forward to being a king and a conqueror.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
In

Suzanne

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Yellow Crits Part 3

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SMxoM_zc88ehoe1Jc1sKJlBLpDqTwJ3r/view?usp=sharing

Includes Solitair's "Crowning the New King", Fuschia_tudes "Dim Procession", Blue Squares' "A Crack begins to form."

Part 4 coming soon.

Previous parts:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eEQJSPQStODHaZ8jTVpnvDI9aVZ7srFy/view?usp=sharing for Part 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kFRROZ9IgLHX1aGLiUK8qnBv8Xt4T8yu/view?usp=sharing for Part 1

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer
Yellow Crits Part 4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X-gSpzECSTRj9Kxiz6cpCtA9Pgw3uVY-/view?usp=sharing

Finishing up my belated crits with "Beyond The Black Curtain" by MockingQuantum, "Sanatorium" by Jan, "marvel at the forest" by Tyrannosaurus, "All Shook Up" by Chairchucker, and "Passion Hides in Painted Smiles" by Benny Profane.


For Part 3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SMxoM_zc88ehoe1Jc1sKJlBLpDqTwJ3r/view?usp=sharing

For Part 2 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eEQJSPQStODHaZ8jTVpnvDI9aVZ7srFy/view?usp=sharing

For Part 1 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kFRROZ9IgLHX1aGLiUK8qnBv8Xt4T8yu/view?usp=sharing

My crits for Week 279 will be here soon.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Thanks Flerp.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZdouzkpDdnnKs0wpA6j8e2jriWll9kO/view?usp=sharing

A narration of Marvel at the Forest by Tyrannosaurus from Yellow week.

Rereading it during my Yellow crits made me appreciate this story even more so I thought I'd give narrating it a go.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Redacted

Jay W. Friks fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Apr 27, 2018

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Prompt: https://youtu.be/svitEEpI07E ~Suzanne

Spirit of Ceremony (#1015)

In the flood of 96, on a furlough from the funeral home, I got stuck in some mud out in the country. A storm came in. I found an eroding wood bridge and hid underneath it till the storm passed. I learned in the next few days that my house was washed away but the funeral home was fine.
The others didn’t come back right away, they wanted time to fix their lives.

Someone had already started a fire underneath the bridge, I figured it has been some homeless person. I restarted it up with fallen boards from the bridge. I heard coughing in what had I initially assumed to be a piled up section of sand. I moved the wet clumps away to find a woman, pale as a seashell, with blue lips that whispered. "I'm sick."

She had a backpack stowed behind a pillar, I grabbed it on her orders. In it were firestarters in an egg carton, a half-empty bottle of moonshine and a deck of cards with funny faces drawn on all of the suits. I gave her the bottle she asked for, she shivered.

"My car's stuck in some mud. I can't get you help. I'm sorry." I said.

She didn't care and asked me my name.I told her and asked her for hers.
She asked what I did.

"I work in a funeral home. I get the clients ready for showing."

"You pretty up dead people?" She asked.

I nodded. It was more complex than that. Words like "pretty" or "respectful” were fleeting masks that people wore. My job was more about putting the essence of an individual's life back together, one last time. I didn’t say anything. This was not the time to play semantics.

"Do you have any next of kin or loved ones you want me to contact?" I asked.
I reached into my suit pocket for my notebook.

She said, "No. I ran away from home 17 years ago. I liked running, so I kept it up."

I held her hand and suggested she get up and move around to build up some heat. She shook her head.

"I'm glad my fire helped you." she said. Her eyes glazed over and her hand went limp.

I sat next to her for a long time. I wondered who she was. I never dealt with anonymous deaths. A Jane Doe like her would be sent to our oven after a week of non-identification. Plots were for people with names and families.

The night passed loudly and thunderously. I didn’t sleep at all, I thought she was staring at me in the dark. I had a crazy thought and put it away. Her fire still crackled, it was helpful all the way to the morning after. It kept a low flame as the charcoal was seasoned to burn even in bad
weather.

In the morning I got in my car and started it up. The mud that held fast last night let go with a cantankerous growl. The rain had washed the dirt around my tires down to the stone where my wheels could get a grip. It was lucky, and the stupid sentimental spirit that had put ideas in my head took it as a sign. I carried her to my car and made it to the funeral home somehow knowing it would be alright.

The lights were already back on, an advantage of having the public school just across the road. (it was probably pretty creepy for the kids, however)I put her on a table and looked at her things, remembered her words and created a vision of her. Someone healthier but wise beyond her years.

I clipped her nails but left a thin strand of soil underneath them. I dressed her complexion into sun-beaten brown, dyed her hair back to the dirty blonde her roots suggested. I dusted her lips to light pink but left the chips in them alone. She had been perpetually nervous at some point in her life but she would have wanted to keep those marks.

I left her eyes alone too, they kept a semblance of dry humor even in death. I scented her with smells in between Fresh notes and Mossy notes on the Fragrance wheel. I put her in a pine box, something dated nowadays but often requested for clients who would be more concerned with melding with the earth than staying solid within it.

I played songs off of the mixtape marked "Traveling songs for Travelers." I stood by and put on the part of a steward showing respect to the people coming to see the deceased. There was no one there but the ceremony was driving me forward.

When the tape finished, I put her in a Hearse with a dolly (a bit disrespectful but I'm not Hercules) and I went to the greenbelt behind the home. I dug a perfect rectangle and leaned her onto the grave ramp.

After burying her, I pictured her walking down a deserted highway.

“Safe travels.” I said.

As I cleaned up, I felt sweaty and frightened like something had possessed me and put me through a marathon.

In the days to come, as work at the home started up again and I got a new apartment, I found myself hearing her voice in my head. She said more things about herself the more I thought about her. I worried I was sick in the head, that the job had made me a ghoul.

It stopped looking like sickness on the first day of spring. I was leaning on the balcony behind the upstairs lab, taking in the sunshine. I saw her walk out from underneath the wild azaleas in the green belt. She picked up her backpack, turned and waved at me. She looked pretty close to what I’d made up for her but I could never emulate the real thing. She flashed a devil-may-cry smile and ran through the woods to places that people only dream about.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer

Sitting Here posted:

this is why interprompts were invented

interprompt:



200 words interprompt or shut up (unless you're saying thanks for the crits [and nothing else])

You wouldn't believe whats in there. (#126)

The nation watched in horror as a giant crow from a parallel universe stuck its head through a rift over Seattle. The news estimated a 2 million death count in the time it took the military to arrive.

The giant bird twisted inside its dimensional socket and opened its beak. The frantically honking people below pushed smaller vehicles into the Sound so they could save their own skin.

The crow huffed and said. "Ewww. It's gross in here. No wonder we're not allowed in the sewer."

It retracted back into its dimension just as the Jets arrived. The death count was 3 million due to people reacting like little bastards, but that was forgettable. The sick burn however...that stuck.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
In

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Nebula (#1151)

“Welcome back to Mike Miller Tonight. I’m like to welcome Jody Moray, holder of the record for the highest freefall over Earth.”

The host invites Jody down to the set. She steps out from the curtains, a well-built titan of a woman. She sweeps her hair aside and sits down next the host.

“Good to be here Mike. Thanks for having me on.”

He chuckles on cue, “Oh c’mon, you think I’m going to let you get ANOTHER world record without getting the first interview? Tell me, what are your preparations for this time around?”

“Mike, I’ve always had a love of skydiving, free falling, chute jumping, what have you. But free-falling from this altitude has even me quaking a bit. What my team is attempting is not only incredibly dangerous but requires an exact set of movements, down to an equation, that I must use when falling. I also have a new pair of flight suits that are the first of their kind.”

Mike frowns, “YOU? You’re quaking? You gotta be kidding me. Sure didn’t look that last month. Lou, bring up that footage of Jody’s last jump.”

The screen shifts and Jody witnesses her free-fall from the Thermosphere. Her flight suit glows red hot as she jumps from the shuttle. She pulls a band from inside the suit and it disengages from her secondary suit like a shell from a hard-boiled egg. She looks like a human spear with her arms and her legs folded back. She remembers the feeling of consistent vibration on the way down turning her teeth into rattlers. For a moment she felt the vibes leave her body and stillness interrupted her descent.

That was something that wasn’t supposed to happen. Jody thought at this point that she wasn’t getting enough air and might be hallucinating. Below her, floated a series of weighted helium tubes. She’s aiming for each tube after another on her way down. Inside the tubes is a special gel lighter than NASA aerogel. Every tube she enters coats her specialized suit and creating a nearly invisible frame around her. This makes her descent progressively slower.

A pink gas flies past Jody at this point in the video She looks at Mike, wondering if he saw it. He narrows his eyes but says nothing. The camera crew on the satellite claimed it was nothing more than a prism cast by water droplets. Jody knows better now. She didn’t spend 20 minutes falling through an orchestrated stunt, she spent two hours in free-fall.


After the pink gas flew past her, a skeletal mass of translucent wings flew through her and carried her soul away. Her breath caught in her throat and stayed there. Her physical body in the flight-suit slowed down like it was sinking through syrup.She was nude in this form but didn’t feel cold. The air in this sky was hot.

The pink clouds were small tufts compared to large mountain-sized banks of dark red and gray gases which swirled around Jody and the beast. The beast flapped its massive wings to stay aloft as another set of wings unfurled from its tumbleweed-like central frame. These wings looked razor sharp and were made to soar with. Jody felt the air POP around her and a massive burst of sound boomed behind her.

The creature had made a sonic boom. It jetted into the thicker layers of clouds below them at a speed that had her convinced they would hit the earth like an asteroid. The ground never came. Instead, swirls of brighter colored gases: greens, blues, whites, and orange flew past them. Jody relaxed and she found her breath again.

She inhaled and the gases of this strange world flooded into her spirit. The creatures descent slowed and it unfurled three more wings. These wings were thin and membranous. Instead of flapping or gliding, the three new protrusions hummed in the air. It was sitting in the air instead of flying through it.

It shook itself and Jody floated off and above it. She looked down and saw numerous beings like the beast flapping and gliding about, feeding on gases and sleeping in the air. She heard something inside her,

“You fly good. Stay with us, play with us.” The beast that brought her said that/breathed it into her.

Jody reached her hand out towards it, little black needles grew slowly out of her joints. She was turning into one of these things.

“What are you?” She asked

Pink gas puffed out of the side of its bony frame, “What do you mean? I am me. I am a flyer. Like you.”

The clouds around thinned and she saw the full breadth of this world. There was no land, it was a plume of dust and gases swirling around in space. The creatures inhabited this plume and were barely solid themselves. They were porous and translucent like her advanced aerogel, like her now. Her body was formed not from her spirit but from the gel.  The gel and suit had done something to her, somehow sent her to another world.

The creatures suddenly trembled and shrill whistles blew out from each of them. Her own beast whined, “Something’s coming! Something bad!”

She reached towards him and her arm became long and bony, pinions ran down the edge of her new limb. Molten rock shot through different ends of the plume and sealed the creatures inside a melting mass of stardust and metal. The creature she came with sunk into the solidifying mire of goo. Jody flew upwards, trying to evade the cataclysm and barely made it out as the creatures met extinction.

The sun shone above the new world, it was Earth’s sun. Which made the molten planet beneath her-

Jody was shaken out of her memories as the audience clapped raucously to her landing in the pinewoods she designated for the drop zone. The video was done. She missed that world she visited, the lost past that she felt she belonged to.

Mike grinned ear to ear and said, “That was amazing. This time it’s even higher. The Exosphere, correct?”

She wiped her eyes, tearing up a bit. “Sorry, something in my eye. Yes, Mike. It’s the highest point before the vacuum of space.”

“I’m guessing you’ll need a few more of those tubes for this stunt. Am I right?” He asked.

“Yep. Twice the amount actually. I won’t have any more of the gel after our engineer's contract ends, so I want to use it all up.” Laughing ensues at what she didn’t intend as a joke.

Mike brings up a still photo of her at the drop point celebrating with her crew. She stares into the monitors above the cameras, knowing the dismay she’s hiding that shot. She hopes this time she can stay in that endless sky.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer
In w Flash rule

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


Got Out.
Grimey Drawer
Little Gray Daisies (#1495)

Prompt: Orpheus and Eurydice

The fridge was empty just like his head. Olan searched inside of it with dim interest. He hadn't collected his checks, gone to the post office or paid any bills in two months and yet somehow he was still surprised he was completely out of food. Even the sesame seed packets Lee used to hoard from her favorite restaurant were gone. He couldn’t remember eating them and didn’t want to think any harder about it. Thinking led to remembering that his wife was gone, it was better not to think at all.

Olan closed the fridge and looked around the kitchen. The sink was filled with mounds of dishes and flies buzzed sluggishly around the overflowing trash bags blocking the pantry door. He lazily kicked the bags aside and opened the pantry. At the top of the empty racks was a bottle of wine someone gave the two of them thinking that all because she wrote and he drew for a living, that they were a wine tasting kind of couple. At the time Lee had fed the assumption, she would say

“Oh, awesome! Peanut Nor, I love this brand!” She mispronounced Pinot Noir on purpose but still acted like it every alcoholic gift was going to be savored and mixed with little crackers. She just loved messing with people who were too polite to correct her.

She told him, one long night locked out the apartment, that the people who would correct her would make good readers for her drafts. They proved themselves as forward and blunt.

Tears welled in Olans eyes. He’d gone and done it. Started thinking about her and the one bedroom, one bath apartment suddenly felt huge and empty. The walls stretched away and ever step to the cupboard to find a corkscrew took more of his life force.

“It-it’s alright. Just gotta get a drink in me. I...I just need to sleep.” He was talking to himself and hoping he would listen. The bottle shook in his trembling hands and purple splotches splattered across the countertops. He swallowed the glass with one pull and felt a pleasant dizzy warmth crawl up from his stomach. Olan took the bottle with him to bed hoping it would grant him a dreamless slumber.

He sat down on the mattress and took two more pulls of the bottle than laid back as the alcohol did its work. He read the bottle label. “Stygian Harbor” in a fancy wavy font with a picture of a field of flowers under a night sky. Lee would probably criticise the font as being too nice looking for what amounted to a last minute gift, she knew all about stuff like that. Her handwriting was a thing of beauty. She had told him a few times how she wanted to release a book in handwriting only, maybe make it look like an old journal.

She never did as she was pretty sure someone had already done that. Olan told her that artists mimic each other all the time. He said it was more important if she said something different through such a medium than the mimicking of the medium itself. She was aggravated by a book review at the time and took his words as him chiding her lack of dedication. Even though she felt talked down too, Olan found notes for the Journal story in her desk shortly after she died. She was working on it, maybe proving him wrong or proving herself wrong. It didn’t matter anymore.

Someone chased her into oncoming traffic. A serial killer, a rapist, the police weren’t certain. She was signing books at the bookstore until late and walked home per usual. Someone chased her and despite being 10 pm at night when no one would normally be driving down Duthie Road. .someone was.They hit her as she ran away from her assailant.

“gently caress. No, I can’t do this again.” The tears flooded Olan’s face, he played it all out in his head again and now he was going to sleep remembering that she was gone.

In his dreams that night he got up to get a drink of water. He sipped it slowly trying to remind himself that the simple things can bring happiness. Cool water when you’re thirsty, shag bath mats on your bare feet, crickets chirping in the night. Olan looked in the mirror and half of him stared back. He turned his head and look saw sinew, blood vessels, and coursing fluids in perfect anatomical harmony.

He’d had this dream before during a stint in jail for assaulting a police officer. Olan never liked authority and took it out in a big way during a protest. During his time away he figured out he didn’t like much of anything including himself. All his drawings and paintings were too self-involved, too ego-oriented. He felt dirty doing the things that used to give him purpose. Was he saying anything poignant at all or just stroking the ego of a side of himself he didn’t want to acknowledge.

After a bender, he tried to get back in the game and make a mural for a friends bookstore. He couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t feel self-involved or cliche. Lee worked at that bookstore and watched him stare a blank wall one hot sunny afternoon. She said he should stop staring or else he’d start to think the blank wall was art.

He didn’t get that. Was she joking, making an analysis out of him and his non-mural? Olan was pretty neurotic back then and took it the wrong way. She humored his cantankerousness instead of getting mad. Olan was charmed and found himself talking to her instead of telling her to mind her own business. They talked about Crayola color names, authors who smelled bad in real life, and their favorite foods.

The mural was done in a week after they met and the next week they were going out to museums and watching underground wrestling leagues. He couldn’t live half empty again. He hopped on one leg to the kitchen and searched for something sharp. There were little gray daisies growing out of the wine stains on the countertop.

He picked one and heard her sigh. It smelled like her: lavender and apple-scented shampoo. Olan put it under his tongue and tasted her lips. The apartment collapsed. The walls and ceiling fell away like set pieces on a stage. Wind billowed around him and Olan felt a bed of flowers under his chilled feet.

The moon overhead was low and full, shedding enough light to give him a path. There were people lying in the flowers. Particles rose up from them like ashes from a fire. The particles joined into a thick dust cloud above.

Olan heard her murmuring in her sleep.

“Hmmm. No...”

There she was, her rib cage pressed in like a massive thumb stamped down on her chest. Olan fell next to her.

“Lee?”

“Olan, what are you doing?.”

“I want to stay here with you. I’m half torn and it hurts.”

“No. You can’t stay. We’ll just end up feeling bad for each other.”

“Why?.”

“Olan, you need to go. I can’t sleep if you’re here.”

“Are you in pain?”

“I shouldn’t be but when you hurt yourself, I feel it. How do you think I’ll feel if you kill yourself?”

“How long do I need to wait?”

“For as long as you can. I don’t know what’s above me. Can you see?”

Olan looked up. The black curtain kept its secrets close.

“No.”

“When you figure out what’s up there then we can meet again.”

She went silent and he didn’t get up. She picked a flower growing from her wounds and put in his hand.

“Olan. Please. For me?”

She did look like she was in pain. He glared at the dust above, trying to see anything beyond it.
There really was no telling what remained of the people past the point where the dust flowed. Olan wondered if his memories would be remain when he died. If they were taken away than Olan wanted to stay alive to find a way to keep his memories of Lee.

It was an unfound theory but it sustained him. He was whole again and found the walk back easier. A giant closed eyelid sat in a crater at the lowest point of the flowerbed. He tore it open and woke up.

Bleary-eyed and hungover Olan went to the bathroom and got a drink of water. He sipped it slow and wondered if he could make up more things to keep himself going. His companion was gone but somehow her absence felt different to him today. It felt judgemental.

“Well? Get on with your life! I wanna hear all about it when we meet again.”

A little gray daisy floated in the glass.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
In with Pyramid Song by Radiohead

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer

gently caress yeah

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Heaven (count:752 ) Prompt: https://youtu.be/3M_Gg1xAHE4

“Who am I?” It asked.

“You’re a shadow. Something that is supposed to follow and not speak.”

“But I don’t want to do that anymore. Can I try standing in the light, just for a little bit?”

It stretched backward against itself, wrapping faded black cloth around my foot: an emaciated hand grasping at its master's ankles. I kicked it away.

“Know your place,” I said.

It ebbed back in a weary, disjointed, and lurching motion. Soft sobs echoed from it. I erased it’s sound so I didn’t have to hear it’s whines.

~~

In this place, under the white sun, I can think things about people I love and force them to love me. I can think things about people I hate and force them to suffer.

~~

“Is this all you want to do here?” It asked.

It’s speaking and I can still hear it. It isn’t possible, I never turned it’s sound back on.

“How are you speaking to me?” I asked.

“What do you mean? You would have to turn off your own voice to make me silent.”

It bent in the middle and pulled itself front and center. My view of the sun is divided by its narrow line of a form.

“Go away, I don’t need you here. I earned this place and I’ll be damned if you’ll ruin it for me.”

“I just want to stand in the light for awhile. There are so many things we could do and know the truth of. Let me try.”

I willed into the shadow and found the microcosm that defined it. Holes erupted inside every fiber, popping open as I pulled the membrane of its existence apart. It screamed in pain.

“I am God’s chosen! I am light itself! This is MY reward, not yours!”

It separated into innumerable frayed threads. The all-encompassing light of the sun hides its remains.

~~

Centuries passed as he indulged every possible fantasy of his former self. Recreating everything he was and changing it, again and again, with the power of the sun. He stopped playing a hero shortly after realizing the full breadth of his power. He had already played that part to death.

He made the man below into whatever would be more entertaining. Rich man. Serial killer. Terrorist. Tyrant. Persecutor. Plague. It was enthralling being in charge of his own destiny, so enthralling that he found it harder and harder to believe that the man below was ever related to him.

“It's not me.” It said one day.

It commanded the light to burn the man below. Car wrecks. Drug addiction. His family going crazy. Him going crazy. Whatever would make this toy he played with stop affirming its importance.

“I am the only thing that matters, so why do I only get to play with you? I’m BORED!” It whined day in and day out.

It fast-forwarded the days and nights. Turning the man below into a martyr of disinterest. Ruining his life with progressively more calamitous and soul flaying methods.

A shadow stretched across the face of the sun. The line it cast cut it in half and the light folded into the ephemeral slash, pulling everything radiant into a void.

It fell through the darkness radiant with terror. This had never happened before. It fell into the soft black cloth of an outstretched palm.

“Who-who are you?” It asked.

“I’m the shadow of the man you’ve been torturing.” My voice boomed inside the void.

“Impossible. I’m chosen by God to rule over his life.”

Curtains separated from my palm and threaded around its light, crushing it and submerging it.

“Stop!” It commanded.

“You are the only God here. You’ve caused nothing but pain and misery and now I’ve come back to settle this.”

It fought against my suffocating darkness, proclaiming it’s every divine right to do what it had done. Its anger was nil next to mine. I snuffed it out like a candle underneath a black bell.

The man below vanished. The pain he’d gone through, the enslavement that bound him, it made his shadow grow longer and taller with every transgression done against it. Now he was finally big enough to cast away the all-encompassing light.

With darkness came endless slumber. No pains or empty fantasies to dredge up. No ego to fool oneself with. Only the scattered fragments of conjoined twins floated inside that peaceful void.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Deltasquid made me a very nice tragedy about time travel with a cool cover and everything. In order to keep the cover art, I'm sharing it as a g-drive link. Thanks again buddy, I appreciate your secret santamint.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByLOrYS0mVeORHVZRlJqbTZzU3BJUHBkdVJDV0ZCa08xYWZJ/view?usp=sharing

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
In

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Week 279 Crits Part One

A looong wait and I have some crits for the first four entries in Wikihow week. Contained within the link below is Exmonds "Humanity's Children", Okuas "All the while the soup was getting cold", Freakies "Lessons", Antivehiculars "The Candymonger's Tale"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vk-lawrdHfwzGAxrqfhm6hoSuACcIMft/view?usp=sharing

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Week: How to Write a Story-crits part two

Next batch of crits are for Entenzahn's "The Sorrow Song", Siddhartha Glutamate's "The Rut", QuoProQuid's "They Said I Could Become Anything So I Became A Horse", and Crabrock's "Weird Yoga Pose"

Part 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mTAQki12-Bpb2aDSJWPN1NoYXKeb6H7a/view?usp=sharing

Part 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vk-lawrdHfwzGAxrqfhm6hoSuACcIMft/view?usp=sharing

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
I live in Issaquah WA not Seattle. Am I allowed to join in?

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer

sebmojo posted:

YES

FIGHT


I fight for the honor of Seattle against the ronoh of the wellington. (I didn't capitalize wellington because who cares smh)

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Fighting for Seattle and Mothpeople everywhere.

:toxx:

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Week 279-How to Write a Story Crits Part 3

Finishing up Week 279 crits with Flerp's "The Fable of the Camel", Tyrannosaurus's "Doctors without Borders", Fuschia tudes "How to be fabulously wealthy", Obliterati's "Backwards Compatible", and Fleta Mcgurn's "This Rider is Bullshit". I think I'm all caught up other than a poem crit and a crit on a story missing from the archive. The other parts are included below as well.

Part 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vk-lawrdHfwzGAxrqfhm6hoSuACcIMft/view?usp=sharing

Part 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mTAQki12-Bpb2aDSJWPN1NoYXKeb6H7a/view?usp=sharing

Part 3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bh0sAO31g5C3xi5xyTNXgDYBALXpL_By/view?usp=sharing

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Let Us In (#327)

A door in a space on a flat driving road_______
history says: STONE WHEELS make it alllll better.

“I’ve seen them out here when we’re supposed to be-”

"Who said that?!"

They called us out and we took doors, walls, and ceilings back from memory. Set up a cone inside a cylinder, set up a tower inside a box, set up antennae inside a head.

They want in.

“They can keep the fields, the woods, the sea, and fears of darkness-we keep the IN inside.” MASTER HAS SPOKEN.

Stay. Don’t go out or you’ll think you can’t get back in. Rage grays out as the artificial light fades from memory.

I love chairs. I love to share. I don’t need a wide open vessel just a place for me and mind.

“CANTYOUSEEWESEEBETTER

CANTYOUSEEWEFOUNDMORTALITY

ONLYLONELYPEOPLENEEDTOFEEEEEEEEEL!”

Out here the air singes, the water beads, the leaves stick
to everything left wide open.


Somehow I’m outside and I can’t get back in.


I didn’t decide this. Let me go backward. My home! It’s actually a beetle with no head. It wraps its shell around its veined wings. I was living in those veins sucking up insect oil.

My place is here in the scar. It’s fun dancing with these platelets, it’s fun goading them into following you
O u T f u r th e r OUT/IN to

A E T H E R

beautiful that I can kill myself and sleep/Wake up and eat. I can store myself inside other selves. Pleasure pleasure to be eaten up and regurgitated

SPLASH

onto the yellow grass. POUR
ourselves up into Sky

and look at
them
they
those things have no idea that they’re trapped.

we come back and show them
you don’t have to let us in we’re already in the air you breathe, the skeleton you hide behind, the guts you build up. Nature is feeling you up at night and pou

ring

pouring
Pou
RING
Pou
ri
n
g
in
YOU



“we’re really not so different.” we agreed.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
What's left to choose from in the cryptids pool? The above conversation is slightly confusing.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer

Chili posted:

Prompt post is updated.

The kiwis are all locked in, they win a minor victory for doing so first.

There are three coffeesippers left to choose their beastie.

Thanks Chili.


I'll go with Man Eating Tree

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Seattle VS. Wellington Brawl
J.W Friks VS. SteeltoedSneakers
Prompt: Man-Eating Tree and “Air”


Scrapper’s Gambit (#989)

In the gales of nuclear winter, Gehenna heaved chunks of rubble into the air with her Exoskeleton. She had been on Terra Firma three weeks; while there’d been plenty of wiring and metal for construction nothing else’d been interesting. Her peers went home while she chose to take an unsanctioned detour to the Sydney Ruins.

They’d returned once their quotes were fulfilled, preferring leisure time over Gehenna’s craving for exploration. Beneath some rubble, she found a mini fridge, an opportunity to make some cash. Even if the food was putrefied, mold paid as much as canned goods since it added new cloning strains to the protein banks.

Her breath strained as she focused on commanding her nerve adapters and suit claws, murmuring mantra like--“The wall isn’t heavy and I will lift it. The wall isn’t heavy and I WILL lift it!”

A shock surged through her and the artificial nerves of her suit. With a metallic whine, she hurled the wall behind her, and splinters shot off a thick root as it landed. She set the fridge down behind a solitary column with her other scraps. Sudden light-headedness and a pinging alarm caught her attention; the VR gauge behind her left eyelid let her know she’d wasted so much time wandering the ruined sights that she’d neglected monitoring her air supply.

Gehenna turned off all non-essential systems off to buy herself time; if she could save oxygen by diverting air intake away from the cooling fans, it’d be worth it. The sudden silence brought unfamiliar sounds. She reengaged the legs of her exoskeleton and spun around.

“Who's there?!" boomed her voice from her helmet speakers.

Tendrils bumped up rubble as they dragged themselves back. Gehenna saw the roots retracting and coughed because gasping took too much air. It was plant life! Gehenna hadn’t much of a background in the history of Terra Firma plant life but she had seen pictures of venus fly traps which imitated jaws so a moving root wasn’t too far-fetched. She figured that if even stranger mutations were visible on Fungi than it was certainly possible that a plant could do the same.

She leapt down from the opera house onto a crumbled pier, the knees squealing from the effort of compensation. As she moved wooden beams, piles of hollowed bones and mummies tumbled into a dusty heap before her.

Beneath that was a deep depression in the sand. Inside it was a massive orblike trunk of knotted wood. A bowl-shaped leaf, the width of a truck tire, sat on top of the trunk. Bones and a mummified head stuck out of the top of the trunk as a greenish liquid bubbled around the corpses, dissolving the marrow and dried meat.

The massive power pack on the Scrapper Suits back was mostly battery but also had a secondary compartment for scientists to store their instruments if they deigned to come to Terra Firma. The scientists always forced the blue-collar salvagers to carry out experiments with untested equipment. Their need to field test new technologies had cost a fair amount of Scrappers precious time(and a few lives) so most spent their time doing what they wanted to do, getting loot and exploring ruins.

One such device had been shoved into Gehennas beta pack on a number of occasions by a leering scientist named Nod. It was designed to leech breathable oxygen from plant life and algae. She didn’t have a Swimmer Skeleton so this was her best chance to see if Oxygen bearing plants still existed.

She concentrated on the smaller hook arms of her Exosuit. They pulled the pronged cylindrical device that sat in the storage space of the power pack. She pulled it out and something came undone. The prongs buzzed with a loud teeth-chattering hum. The plant shuddered at this noise.

The roots and branches snaked out of the countless holes that surrounded it. Some came back gripping more mummified body parts. Even though life no longer moved in this city, the plant had developed means to find protein. Gehenna didn't know if this thing was dangerous but the amount of "arms” it waved around protectively was disorienting.

Gehenna heard alarms in her suit and knew it was now or never. She pointed the business end of the prongs at the slithering roots and pushed hard with her mind into the circuitry of the device. It effectively sealed the air it gathered inside a bubble of sound. The creature shivered but didn't react aggressively as it either had enough oxygen that losing a tank’s worth wasn't a big deal or it didn't know how to respond.

Gehenna pointed the other prongs at the refill valve of her oxygen tank and willed the air to go in and stay awhile. A sharp whistle ran through her breathing tube and she was back in business. With a breath of fresh air running through her lungs, Gehenna concentrated on the shape of clippers.

The tiny claws on the secondary arms rolled backward and a set of sharpened shears took their place. She stepped as carefully and closely to the plant as she could without getting caught in its roiling vines.

The tamped sand broke under her and she tumbled. Her life flashed before her eyes as the vines wrapped around her and constricted down on every possible surface. Just when she thought she was about to be dropped into the soup, the plant shuddered and set her down. A strange slime coated her Exosuit, she ran it through the viewfinder and found it was roughly a few molecules away from saliva.

A few branches snapped off during its taste test. She deposited them into sample jars and went back to the rendezvous point. The storm had quieted and it was a lovely stroll out of Sydney. Gehenna felt exhilarated, she belted out Auld Lang Syne through her speakers. The whole world was hers.

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
In and :toxx:

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Redacted

Jay W. Friks fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Apr 27, 2018

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
In with a fffffffff-flash!

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer
Redacted

Jay W. Friks fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Apr 27, 2018

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Jay W. Friks
Oct 4, 2016


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Grimey Drawer

C'MON AND SLAM, AND WELCOME TO THE JAM!

The toxxes are up and your ballz are down on the chopping block so let's get this party started.

SEBMOJO and EXMOND have declared a partnership for brawling against SH.

Here's yo prompt Seb and Exm



C'MON AND SLAM

Seb, you're going to begin a story. Word limit 500. You're not going to finish it, just gonna get the party started. The story can be about anything in any genre save all the usual lovely stuff (Erotica, Fanfic, ect). Once it's done, Exmond, you're going to finish his story with a 500-word limit. You two can work together behind the scenes, planning, detailing, but the two of you must write and submit your entries alone.

AND WELCOME TO THE JAM

I just gave a serious handicap to Seb and Exm, they could easily botch this up and guarantee a Nina Tucker situation out of their story so SH you're getting something hard to work with too. Your prompt SH, is to write a story involving Basketball and magic. Your challenge to make it as dead serious as possible. So in contrast to the SPACE JAM going on in this post, you gotta cut all ties with the Looney Tunes/NBA jerkoff session when you do up your story. MAKE IT SERIOUS. MAKE IT DEADLY loving SERIOUS. Word limit 1000.

All this is due by MARCH 28, 2018 at 8 pm PST.

Good luck and drink your ecto-cooler.

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