|
Sure, why not? In.
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2019 16:41
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 09:21 |
|
|
The Night Train in Calgary, Alberta. One-thousand two-hundred fourteen words. I stepped out from an old house lodged between two sky scraping condo units into the dead of night. The house was a fossil of another time, consumed by the ever sprawling city. Staring at the towers gave me vertigo so I looked down and tried to keep myself from puking. I zipped up my leather jacket and walked over to my car, a blacked out civic. It took me three tries to get the key in the hole and I scratched the poo poo out of my paintjob but I make it inside. I couldn’t believe I was alone, again. I hated being alone. There wasn’t any reason either. I wasn't hideous or dumb. There were girls at the party. I just couldn’t make a move. I don’t know why. It’s probably the anxiety in my gut, the overpowering fear that I'll try and it'll go so badly that they'll all laugh at me. I'd never be able to show my face in the art rock scene again. I placed my keys into the ignition. I just wanted to race down the wrong side of a highway and smash into a semi truck trailer at speed and dash my brains all over the pavement just in time to blow up everybody’s morning commute. At least then the world would stop for just one loving moment while I got off this sick carnival ride of a life. I pulled the keys out of the ignition. I hated that I just thought that. I was throwing myself another pity party instead of taking action. If I wasn’t able to ask out a girl I’m not going to have the balls to kill myself and give some old bastard PTSD in the process. I got out of the car and walked to the transit station three blocks over, sat in a glass waiting area, and waited for the next train to pull in. There was a little heater on the ceiling. I pushed the button for warmth but it sputtered and died. Cold air blasted between the glass panels. I tried to stay warm, but the bench was cold and metal so I waited for my train standing up despite the protests of my gut. The sign said the train is only two minutes away. It said that for thirty minutes before it finally arrived. The train car had a bendable middle section with plastic seats on either side. There’s one other rider, so I sat on the opposite side of the train and stared out the window at the river. Reflections of the lights from the condos sparkle on the surface of the black water like goldschlager in a torrent of bile getting pumped out of some idiot teenager. The train hummed a control group approved tune and it resumed it's lonely night trek through the empty city. The jolt of inertia sends my guts reeling. I had to cross the river and downtown, then I’d be home. The train sped out over the river and the new pedestrian bridge came into view. They paid some hotshot German artist millions to put the thing together and it looked like a Chinese finger trap. I'd hate it but that was cliché. Everyone hated it. They even protested city hall and asked them to cut art funding all together. They wanted to let the developers turn the city into a concrete desert to save a couple bucks on income tax. I didn’t want that, but I did wish they'd stop handing out millions to idiots to try to internationalize the cities image instead of building something natural. You couldn't even see the river from inside the pedestrian bridge and since the tunnel-like shape blocked cell service, gangbangers used it to mug people. “Hey baby fucker!” screamed the guy sitting at the other end of the train car, “I know you from your last life!” I waved politely at him and got off at the next stop. It's downtown but I figured I'll take the next one instead. I exited out of the train in front of a half burned out neon sign of a stereotypically Italian man that held a slice of pizza and bathed the entire station in red light. It’s the kind of thing that would be totally racist if anybody cared enough to raise a fuss but gently caress it, I’m drunk. I got inside and the middle aged dude who worked the counter hooked me up with a slice from the spinning carousel. They only had vegetarian left, which wouldn’t be a problem if they had left off the pineapple. I guess it was more of a ‘whatever leftovers we got’ pizza. I pay the man and look for a seat. There's one other customer, a girl. Woman, I mean. She's facing me. I notice her braided hair, dark skin, and Washington Redskins jacket. She feels my stare and looks up. I usually shy away from eye contact but her gentle brown eyes pulled me into a trance. I smile and sit down in front of her. She gives me a side eye and I realized I must have seemed like the creepiest motherfucker on the planet. “poo poo, sorry, thought I recognized you,” I said calmly as internally I was desperately trying to think of something to talk about. I thought my head might implode in front her. At that point I hoped it did. At least that would be interesting. “Oh yeah, from where?” she asked. “Uuh, the game," I said, pointing at her jacket. “I'm not a fan,” she replied. poo poo, I thought to myself. “Oh you reppin' DC?” I asked. She shook her head. “I'm Native American.” She answered. I mentally kicked myself. No poo poo moron, it was obvious. Or is it actually not obvious and I'm the idiot for thinking that it was just now? My stomach curdles inside of me. “You don’t find the Redskins offensive?” I asked in a surprise tone that belied my nervousness. “Why would I?” she said, answering my question with her own and putting me on the spot. I considered for a moment about telling her what I knew of Native American oppression before I realized that was probably the worst idea in the world. I ditched that option. I noticed she hadn’t moved away, laughed at me, or pepper sprayed me, so I figure gently caress it. I thought of the pedestrian bridge and decided I might as well be natural. “Because they suck!” I said. She had a surprisingly deep laugh, but I liked it. We talked for an hour about our jobs and the pizza. Finally the dude who ran the joint kicked us out into the pale blue early dawn. We were going in different directions, and I don’t know if it was the liquor or the adrenaline but I managed to get her number before she left. I spent the time waiting for a train staring down at my hand and admiring her choppy writing. Finally I puked all over the train tracks in front of me. I had just enough time to wipe my mouth on my sleeve before the train pulled up in front of me. The door opened and the train was empty. I was fine with that.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2019 07:29
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2019 08:40
|
|
|
Chili Jon Space brawl pushed back one last time to sunday.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2019 15:01
|
|
|
SlipUp posted:Chili Jon Space brawl pushed back one last time to sunday. Did I say today? I meant tomorrow.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2019 21:51
|
|
|
See archive.
SlipUp fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Dec 30, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2019 06:53
|
|
|
In. I'm gonna put the action in reaction
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2019 00:21
|
|
|
Oh also like a big budget movie that's bombing in test screenings the Space Opera week is pushed back to Saturday for what I assume are extensive rewrites. Don't say santa never got you anything!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2019 04:52
|
|
|
Space opera judgement commencing.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2019 08:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 09:21 |
|
|
Chili Jon Space Brawl Judgement Let's begin. Chili posted:Space opera brawl vs. JonJoe Not the most exciting hook here. quote:“Don’t forget, Fuckstick, the captain likes a dusting of nutmeg on his cocoa. If you don’t get it right, it’s not just your rear end, it’s mine.” I like the characters so far. quote:They bring out the cocoa after a minute and I top it to the proper specifications--a dollop of heavy whipping cream, a single chocolate chip in the center of said cream, and, of course, the dusting of nutmeg. I neatly place it on my serving tray, jam my earbuds in, and crank up the metal as I head off to the deck. The holiday stuff is a nice touch. Good work weaving in the sounds and smells, really adds to the background, helps the story feel fuller. quote:The bridge is impressive, and even if The Volzon is on the most boring conceivable mission, a jaded prick like me can appreciate the tech behind it. The entirety of the perimeter wall is a fully 3-dimensional screen. Its default presentation is the space behind it, making it seem like it’s one giant window. In reality, there are one-to-one cameras on the outside of the ship, capturing the image of what we should be seeing. Because it’s a screen, scores of the crew sit around it with their own portions segmented off as they attend to poo poo that I certainly can’t understand. They’re all busier than usual, staring intently into their segments. Up til now it didn't feel very sci-fi but it's getting there now. You don't have to be so specific in describing your sci-fi gadgets, remember ooohhh.... I think it was Orson Scott Card with his great line "The door dilated." Very expressive in like three words. quote:I see The Stache standing at the command deck and I trudge up to him. I take out my earbuds, rescrunch the professional smile onto my face and say: The plot has appeared. The descripton of a Zeyton is a little clunky. Maybe try interjecting a comparision of some sort. "His deep maroon... wiggle with glee, like a half-lizard, half-spider." quote:“You there!” He shouts. lol. Humour is great to help break up exposition. quote:The Stache blinks at me and looks back towards Strogonar. Apparently, he’s unfamiliar with our jargon, because he continues to address me as though I said my name was Adam, which it is, of course. I remember that now. I wonder what the story would have been like if it started here. The story drags a little as fuckstick is getting the coffee and walking through the ship and then it really kicks into gear here. quote:The Stache turns his head to look back at me, but as he does he falls limp onto my shoulder. I do my best to catch him, but he’s a big son of a bitch and his uniform is so drat silky his body slips right through my arms and he falls with a thud. I touch my face as I feel a burn on my cheek—a parting gift courtesy of the friction from The Stache’s stache— and I look back towards Strogonar. Wow, great stuff. I was fully enraptured. This really nails the prompt. Very on point for a space opera. quote:The heat of the Race Laser emanates from god knows how far away, but it will be on us in moments. I'm a sucker for this. (E/N! or N/E I guess.) The checkov's gun works great since the sav-all feels pretty self explainitory. I would've spent a few more words on the destruction of the Volzon. That's your golden opportunity to drop epic words left and right. Smash the screen you talked about earlier. Throw in a little explosive decompression. Talk about the two halves of the ship careening into the ink like you're talking about the titanic. This is longer than your typical flash/slash/short, don't be afraid to go off on a tangient a little bit if something epic is happening! quote:Space. As far as I can see. Empty blackness shouts at me with an occasional twinkling of hope off in the distance. There is no more Volzon. A quick scan below me reveals that about a dozen or so of my fellow crewmates heeded my warning in time to protect themselves. I watch as they use their precious, suit-lined, concentrated fuels reserves to push themselves towards one another. Slowing down a bit. I feel like we've reached the climax already and this is a lot of falling action. quote:I inhale and gather myself: “This is Captain Fuckstick, grand general of absolutely nothing except for you dozen or so men or women who had the wherewithal to save your skins when the chips were fuckin’ down.” Kinda dragging still. quote:“But what about Strogonar?” One of them asks. Actually the end is really good in that you stop when there could be a whole novel of material after this! Though it made good use of the word limit, it just left a lot of loose threads. Overall your characters and action are on point. The beginning dragged and some of the sci fi descriptors were a little clunky, like the Zeyton and the screen on the bridge. The Sav-all worked well so I would pursue that technique when considering these other sciency doodads. You double spaced your entry, but luckily it is a space entry. It's consistently formatted and that's all I really care about personally. Onward! Jon Joe posted:The Chili Jon Brawl - Space Opera An okay opener. Doesn't really hook me but I feel like it sets up the conflict well enough off the bat. Does 'tell' instead of 'show'. You could have this on the bridge when some desicion has to be made ("Evasive manuvers!") and Starbeam is totally on her phone so Ivan has to make the call. Then we would infer the sentence you've actually written ourselves but we get to feel like clever mkonkeys. quote:Ivan was very managerial, but not in the micromanaging way. Most crew members liked him, though he wouldn’t hesitate to get on somebody’s rear end for not doing their job. His most frequent arguments were with Captain Starbeam and her partner in lazy crime, ‘Fronz’, the janitor. More telling instead of showing. I like your names though. quote:Fronz wasn’t his real name, which was information only the captain had access to, but she had lost her key card to the ship’s computer system on her first day and never bothered to get a replacement. In order to avoid cleaning, Fronz convinced a ship engineer, Gertrude, to manufacture some cleaning bots. They worked perfectly except that Fronz had to hide that he was using them from Ivan, because they’d be the perfect excuse to fire Fronz. Why do they like Fronz? Need more show. Alsodid you just describe the plot to me like it wasa back cover blurb? That's a little... Dry. quote:Gertrude didn’t like Fronz, but she had gone along with his plan because who she did like was Captain Starbeam, romantically speaking, and Fronz promised to help matchmake them. Fronz was very bad at matchmaking, and through sheer incompetence managed to land Gertrude a date. With Ivan. Okay that's funny. quote:Ivan didn’t fancy Gertrude and also wasn’t a fan of non-professional relationships, but wanted to let her down gently because he thought she liked him. For help, he visited the ship psychologist, Dr. Yevin. I need dialogue. I need descriptors. I don't know what anybody looks or sounds like, so I'm not overly invested in them. I'm as invested in the characters as I am the cleaning bots. quote:Dr. Yevin got to hear how mortified and embarrassed Gertrude was over the misunderstanding. Although she tried to convince her to be more open and direct with her feelings, Gertrude was the shy type. Most of the time, when she wasn’t working, she sat in silence in the corner of the mess hall, by the window where Chord, lead chef, would wordlessly converse with her and then hand her comfort food. How do they wordlessly converse? Grunts? Body Language? Morse code winks? There is a lot of characters in this and they just all run together. quote:Chord didn’t speak much in general, somehow knowing what was on people’s minds and responding accordingly. Some people thought he was a psychic alien disguised as a human, which wasn’t true. He was your average and ordinary psychic human who had escaped experimentation in a secret laboratory and through sheer coincidence ended up aboard the Trümmelbach. He couldn’t read thoughts, but he could read emotions, and prepared food accordingly. Here we go! This is a truely interesting idea. A psychic chef is the one person who would nailhis dish everytime. Need more Chord! quote:The other chef, Kimmel, was an undercover agent trying to recapture the escaped experiment, which she only knew was aboard the ship. But where? lol nice. Funny stuff. quote:Fronz liked Kimmel, romantically speaking, and unlike some people he wasn’t shy about it. I think you have a real talent for coming up with funny situations. quote:Coincidentally, a decidedly not-psychic alien was aboard the ship, but it was very good at avoiding detection, and thus unimportant to ship politics save for its tendency to steal objects. On one such occasion it took Dr. Yevin’s computer, with all her important case notes inside. This sent her into a panic and she approached the ship’s security expert, Monitoring AI Model: Kinetic Infrared Luxury License. I've honestly lost the plot a little here. It seems like it's taking a little detour. Luckily MAIM KILL is funny as gently caress. quote:Potentially losing her opportunity to spend time with Fr— complete her mission, Kimmel did the only thing she could. She told the truth and asked Ivan to help her find evidence of Fronz’s psychic ability. Although Ivan doubted that Fronz had any kind of ability, he nonetheless wanted remove Fronz from the ship, thus agreed. Okay back on track plotwise. quote:Due to Kimmel and Ivan spending more time together, Captain Starbeam was convinced they were dating, which left her in the precarious situation of breaking the news to both Fronz and Gertrude. I like chaos and your climax gave me a bit of that. I felt like I was being decribed it by someone who was there rather than actually being there. MAIM KILL kinda saved it. You have funny characters and situations but actually putting them in writing totally fell flat. You need to break this up into like four different scenes that show all the things you're trying to tell me. Lacks the epicness that a Space Opera requires, though I like the idea of political intrigue, the stakes just needed to be higher. I would be so insanely down to read the adventures of Chord and MAIM KILL. I'm kinda mad you put this in my mind and didn't go wild with it. Judgement The lonely vessel dropped out of hyperdrive. Electricity sparked across its surfaces as it re-engaged normal space. Before it lay the two planets of the Domoso System. Planet Chili, where spacelings lived and died and tried their best, and planet JonJoe, where a mysterious race hid from view and plotted. Slip disengaged his thrusters and paused for a moment. Which planet did Lord Thunder command him to destroy again? poo poo. His hand hovered over the comms for a moment. It was take ages to re-establish parameters across the galaxy. He would be punished for such a lowly mistake. He would have to choose himself. Sweat beaded down his face. The fates of worlds rested on his shoulders. He knew some about the inhabitants of planet Chili, but almost nothing of those from planet JonJoe. He fired his anti-matter missile. His teleporter hummed and the warhead appeared on planet JonJoe. The force disk from the explosion sheered the planet in two before his very eyes. The molten core of the planet spilled out into space before solidifying, like intestines from one who's been eviserated. The hemispeheres shuddered and dissolved into smaller and smaller rocks as they were propelled into space. The inhabitants of planet Chili saw fire in their skies. Well, a decision had been made. Slip could only hope it was the right one. Chili Wins Thanks to you guys for writing!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2019 18:22
|
|