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In, bonus 200.
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Jan 9, 2019 01:22
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Staggy posted:Your beast is the Sea-Pig. At Least It's an Entry 643 words Jake's white coat hangs empty next to a few others outside the cooler's door. It's just the kind of coat to wear while making minimum wage; the cheap fabric feels stiff and plastic, and you're almost warmer not even wearing it. But I'm wearing mine because it's the rules. It's just the kind of job to work while you're off school for the summer. Jake's been off school for nine years. He didn't major in English to work at a grocery store, but if we're actually being honest, that's why you major in English. To work at a grocery store, if you don't manage to get an internship. Of course, you'd be working at a grocery store if you were an intern anyway, so I guess that's really it. You major in English to work at a grocery store. I'm going to major in business or something; I'm not stupid. I think a lot about my older coworkers here. If you're really old or still a kid, sure, it makes sense. Most of the managers are in between, which also makes sense. But the in-between coworkers, like Jake, are just depressing. How the do you work in a grocery store for that long making that much? How do you turn THIRTY working in a grocery store? I'm hosing down the meat grinder inside the cooler. The meat department's back room is basically a refrigerator, and this is the refrigerator's refrigerator. It's the clammiest job; I hate it. Jake didn't seem to mind. He was actually a pretty great guy when I started working here. We were both into a lot of the same stuff, mostly good books and bad movies. At first, I thought he was a pretty cool guy for liking the same things that I did. I guess "cool" isn't really the right word, but when you're a nerd, you think nerds are cool no matter how pathetic they are. Anyway, it was cool to have someone to bullshit with about Zardoz or Neuromancer while getting a paycheck. His favorite beer is Arrogant Bastard. I actually managed to buy him a case for his birthday just by telling the cashier (Lisa, in the "really old" category of appropriate grocery store ages) that it was for him. I also got him House of Leaves, which I still haven't read but looks cool as hell. But I'm getting off track here – I bring up the beer because, while I thought he was a cool Adult of Legal Drinking Age, I think at this point that he's just an alcoholic. He was a pretty fun guy when I first showed up last summer, but now he's just a wet blanket. Or was, I guess. I haven't seen him in a while now. And I think he was always a wet blanket; it was just the sheer novelty of my being a kindred dorky spirit that brightened him up for a bit. I guess he'd have to be that way after working here for almost a decade (it said on his name tag). He started the job just because it was what he could get, and he stayed because it was what he had, and it just became a rut after a while. I probably made it even worse – I'm someone to talk to, but I'm also someone with my twenties still ahead of me. This isn't anything that we've talked about, but I think I can take a freakin' guess here. Back outside the cooler, I'm seeing his coat again. And this is harder to guess about, the more I think about it. Where is he? We barely even looked at each other this summer. I don't know if he quit or if he was fired; both make sense in their own ways. Is he doing better now or worse? I hope it's better.
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Jan 14, 2019 09:18
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Simply Simon posted:I'll bite (and I hope it's fine to just post this, I'm new here) Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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Jan 14, 2019 21:08
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Time to start declaring winners for interprompts.
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Jan 15, 2019 05:06
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Make them write stories about your avatar.
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Jan 15, 2019 20:24
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Gimme a stinker.
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Jan 16, 2019 02:50
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Simply Simon posted:I will not stand for the slander of my English skills; the word order mangling was a very deliberate choice on my end. I thank you for the advice, but you should have been way more cruel in putting down my hubris.
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Jan 16, 2019 21:05
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 I'll have a dumb rule.
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Jan 17, 2019 00:32
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Forever 456 words Leon fell out of the goat. Again. I push him in he slides back. The carcass reeks like the air burns but I have to get him in. Dammit he fell out. It's hopeless but it's less hopeless than leaving him out for the moths or something. I push again I push again. Goddamn he fell out. We don't belong here. Maybe this goat with all his legs and tits didn't either if he's dead but at least he's big. Not pitifully vulnerable. I need to get Leon in there. Worst-case scenario there's enough goat meat I hope to distract. Of course whatever sliced it open didn't even take a bite who even knows. Leon fell out of the goat again. The moths were all over him. I tried to beat them away they didn't even bother flying. Just mashed them up yellow red right on Leon. He was barely breathing I had to get him away. Couldn't pick him up but dragged as far as I could under the white sky it won't shut up. drat moth is biting my shoulder I mash it and push again. I hit my head it still hurts. We don't belong here how did I find him? I dragged him as far as I could. The air burns so bad. Moth is biting me I see a crow man past the goat. I can't stop pushing but he'll see if I don't. The crow man's legs are broken but he's walking fine. I don't push again. The goat has a broken rib that I pull away. The sky is quieter I'm going deaf. Crow man still doesn't see me or Leon behind the goat with all his legs and tits his goat dick. I push again there's a flutter. God drat. I'm holding the rib now and don't even hit the moth. He's coming toward us can I hurt him? Whack hard with the rib he falls. Swings back up he sees Leon now and I hit again. He doesn't make a noise or I'm deaf and he takes a nice big peck out of Leon he's screaming and I can't hear. The air burns so bad we don't belong here. I hit again and again crack the bird's head like his legs. The crow man doesn't stop and Leon's screaming. The crow man doesn't stop but Leon does. loving kill that thing. I smash hard crack the beak off and it grabs the wet rib. We pull and pull and I slip it takes a swing. I'm walking through badlands under a shrieking white sky. The air burns in my lungs, and I still pant for thirst. I think I've hit my head. It hurts like hell. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Jan 21, 2019 |
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Jan 21, 2019 09:04
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gently caress it.
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Jan 21, 2019 09:22
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flerp posted:So, when you read this sentence, the first noun is “words” and our brains go ok that’s the subject of the sentence. BUT! That’s actually not the true subject, because the actual subject, the person doing things in the sentence, is Peter. This is why the sentence is passive -- the object of the sentence comes first, and then the subject comes later. Edit: Brawl. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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Jan 22, 2019 10:09
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flerp posted:ok whatever its not technically active voice but it still sucks and is a problem and yes sometimes active voice is overemphasized (which is also why i critiqued other parts of the story) but in an action story having weird sentences that are close to passive makes action feel stilted and bad and now your actions story’s action feels bad. i also explain why it’s bad, it’s not like i only say “this is not active so it’s bad” but whatever go off i guess Rad-daddio posted:I get what flerp was saying in the crit. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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Jan 22, 2019 18:26
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Jan 23, 2019 04:20
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Heck. In.
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Jan 23, 2019 05:38
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Gone to Waste 999 words BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! Jerry awoke, more or less, and struggled to care enough to lift his arm to his alarm clock. Every morning was like this now. He would like to get up, of course. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! Yes, the alarm was a nuisance. But it was hard to care about such a trivial bother next to the impossible beauty he felt simply lying in his bed, especially on a Saturday. He went back to sleep. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! The alarm clock would sound for another hour and a half, until he finally roused himself enough to give it a languorous slap and sleep for a few hours more. Jerry had purchased his new mattress after hearing his favorite podcasts endorse it. Its comfort and quality had immediately struck him when it was first delivered, but any new mattress would be so notable after the torn, sagging bag of springs that it had replaced. As the nights and mornings slid by, though, Jerry came to realize that, somehow, his bed had become his favorite place to occupy, and its almost irresistible attraction began to concern him. It was beginning to seriously disrupt his routine, and if he couldn't get himself together, his employment would be in real danger. When Jerry finally rolled out of bed at 3 in the afternoon, he was disgusted with himself. He wasn't even wasting his free time on nothing; this was less than nothing. He was fed up. Saturday, the end of the week, would be the end of this insane habit. He went out for a jacketless walk in the January air, hoping to clear his head with a stiff shot of cold reality. He nearly, very nearly, made it down the steps to the sidewalk without slipping on an icy stair and breaking his arm. Jerry refused to go to bed when he got back from the hospital that evening. The challenge had become greater, but all the greater would be his resolve in reforming himself. He decided that he would spend the evening reading in his chair for as long as he could before going to bed, and he would wake up no later than 7:30 the following morning. He wrote GET UP, YOU IDIOT! on his cast in Sharpie before sitting down with the biggest book on his little bookshelf, an O. Henry collection. A little after midnight, he decided that he had held out long enough to make his point, and he went to bed. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! BEEP BEEP— Jerry had slept uneasily, both from the stress of his inescapable self-reproach and from the awkwardness of the cast on his arm, and he didn't even need the plaster's message to swat like a cat at the clock beside him. The awful cracking noise he heard annihilated his lethargy. Had he really managed such a stupid gently caress-up so soon? His arm motionless, Jerry gingerly tried to turn his head around for a look without moving any of the adjacent muscles. He was some way through this maneuver when he realized that his arm felt perfectly fine. He gave it an experimental flex, and the cracked plaster scraped as it moved. It was insane, but his arm was perfectly intact! Jerry sat up in bed, pulled the cast off, and stared at his arm. Then his gaze drifted down to the bed. How fortunate that Sunday afforded him the time for an experiment. It didn't take long for his bicycle to get up to speed, and it spun as gracefully as a sycamore seed as Jerry, cranking the handlebars left as hard as he could, felt his side grind satisfyingly into the rough ice underneath. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP! BEEP— The old towel was crusted with scab when Jerry peeled it away that evening, but his skin was perfectly smooth and unbroken. He had been right. And now that he understood what was going on, he wouldn't be so cluelessly swayed by the mattress's comfort. It was a tool now, not a trap. The question, of course, was what to do with this knowledge. He suspected that this was not a standard feature of the mattress model, or word would have circulated long before now. Would he keep it to himself? Would he share it with a close few? Would he come right out and offer therapeutic naps on the thing for a modest fee? Jerry waffled on this question for years. Like getting out of bed, big questions have a way of putting themselves off. As time went on, though, his friends noticed that he didn't seem to be getting any older. It was impressive after five years; it was suspicious after ten. It was downright unsettling after fifteen. And still Jerry couldn't bring himself to tell. "Jerry," his friend Alex said to him one day, "tell me what's going on with you! It's really starting to scare me!" Jerry coughed wetly; he had a bad case of the flu. "You really want to know?" Alex rolled his eyes. "No, I'm just wasting your time because I have nothing better to do." Jerry told him about the mattress. Alex gave him the finger and walked away, ignoring Jerry's entreaties to just sleep on it for a night and see if he still has that cough, telling Jerry to gently caress off, you creepy weirdo. Jerry knew it was hopless. Alex wouldn't have believed anything short of Jerry being a vampire. Of all the stupid ways to be immortal... But even as the mattress preserved Jerry's body, it did nothing to prolong itself. As it turned into a torn, sagging bag of springs, Jerry felt the years catching up to him, one by one at first, then by twos and threes. His frozen youth turned out to be a mere mid-life anomaly, and it fell from people's minds as decisively as it had captured them.
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Jan 28, 2019 10:05
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Tyrannosaurus posted:Writers
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Jan 29, 2019 16:49
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Sitting Here posted:Shambam, you have just under 6 hours to spill your ink onto these hallowed sands The Age of Dragonlore 1,200 words Know my story, and you shall know the story of Dragonkind. I am called Dràchia of Greatpeak – I am indeed she of legend. Do not flee, little Human. For knowledge have you come here... I will do naught but share. It was in the Grey Times that I found Jörumir, my Rider, and was Bonded that I might breathe the blaze. To be a light in the twilight, a spark against the shadows. Long had the Elvenborn lain slumbering; long had the Worldsphere waited in bloody confusion. But destiny had chosen us to raise the dawn. In the Hædalfin Forest I prowled for worthy prey, but little knew I on that day of fate that one more worthy than any prey hunted there too. I was stalking a silvery fangwolf when "I'm sorry, man. But this is boring as poo poo." I had told Evan to go hard on me. ❖ Between the pages of the DOC, Dràchia dozed fitfully, dreaming fragments of drafts past. Shifting in her sleep, she awoke in an instant, as if a wire deep within her had been suddenly tripped. Eyelids and nictitating membranes slid away from the golden irises beneath, which contracted in mounting exasperation. Several minutes passed before she broke the silence. "I'm boring as poo poo!" The ancient dragon uncoiled her great green-scaled form and rolled off her hoard of dingy gold, which was not crushed by her weight, to lumber about her lair, in which all was visible without torchlight or sunlight. She paid no mind to these incongruities; this was just how things were. Dràchia paced back and forth, snorting the musty air. What was it that had made her spend so many centuries alone in a smelly old cave? ❖ I argued with Evan, of course. Had he ever read a book about a dragon rider where the dragon was the protagonist? And if he'd bothered to read more than a page, he'd have seen some real character development – I had created a hell of a strong female character in Dràchia, but she had enough flaws to keep from being a Mary Sue. He'd also have seen the depth and balance of my magic system; he would be hard-pressed to call the Worldsphere a "generic" universe if he actually understood it. In fairness, some of his criticism had been constructive: I had to admit that "Dràchia" might be a little on-the-nose for a dragon name, for example. Maybe I could change that. ❖ Vràchia padded to the mouth of her cave and looked out to the dusky horizon. Her view was to the west, but she didn't see the sunset; the Worldsphere turned the other way, which was imaginative and unique. Vràchia thought about the sprawling forests and plains beyond Greatpeak's foothills, the many adventures that she could have had in lives that she could have led, and snorted. She was done lying around on her gold like a sack of poo poo just because her Rider was dead. She was going to get into trouble and kick its rear end. As she extended her shimmering wings and tensed herself for takeoff, an unimaginable force seized Vràchia, and she found herself resuming the endless tale that she had been telling to... who was even listening to her? There was no trace of an audience, but the words droned out of her maw unstoppably. "Magic, little Human, is at once the most powerful and most elusive thing in the Worldsphere. It is like the great white eels that spawn in the Nälanor River, they that climb the rapids, they that slip any grasp. But if you could guide the water – ah, you see? It is like that." ❖ As I thought more about Evan's complaints, my defensiveness began to dissipate. I knew that he wasn't "just jealous", as people are so eager to call those who find even the slightest flaw in their worldbuilding, so what had turned him off to my story? Perhaps it simply didn't have a strong enough opening hook. Would starting in medias res work for that? I went to the refrigerator for a snack. There was some cheese in the back that I'd gotten in a Christmas gift basket last month. Wait. Two blocks of cheese. Had I really let cheese from two Christmases back up in my fridge? I didn't see any dates on the shrink-wrap, and they both looked all right. I opened one. At worst, it would be bad, and I could just throw it out and be done with it. The cheese was fine. It went very nicely with my New Holland Dragon's Milk barrel-aged stout. ❖ Despair, no less crushing for its familiarity, overcame Vràchia. This happened every time she tried to do anything at all but languish in her lair. It was as if she existed for the sole purpose of sitting around and remembering her glory days, recounting them to thin air. How many more centuries would pass before she could be free? Was that even within the bounds of her existence? Perhaps the life in her memories had always been a lifetime ago, would always be. Perhaps there really wasn't anything more. Then again, she could recall her thrill at the dragon epics of old that Jörumir once recited to her. (Or, rather, she could recall that he had recited them; the words themselves seemed curiously absent from her memory.) There were worse ways to while away immortality than telling stories, even to nobody. The problem was that she was an awful storyteller. With every word that escaped her jaws, the thought was inescapable: Why do I talk like such a dipshit?! ❖ The cheese was not fine. I made several trips to the toilet that night before stumbling back to bed for the last time, chilled and shivering, and sank into sleep with a horrid headache. "Know my story, and you shall know the story of Dragonkind," roared the enormous acorn. All around me the oaks were black, and I somehow knew that they loathed my presence, that they were right to, for I was wrong to be here. I screamed from the depths of my bleeding lungs, an abject scream without even fear or pain, because I was wrong to be here. The empty sky heard me and took no pity, and the acorn continued to roar. "To be a light in the twilight, a spark against the shadows." Why was it an acorn? Why was it right to be an acorn, when I was so wrong, rotting rooted to the alien ground? I screamed. ❖ Vràchia began to realize the truth. There had never been a Jörumir centuries before; there had never even been any centuries. There would never be anything but the perpetual now, the limbo of endless remembrance for which she had been created. She clawed at herself, rammed her head against the cave wall, swallowed bauble after pointy little bauble, and nothing happened. Nothing could. ❖ I was still exhausted when I woke up, and the terrible dream refused to leave my mind. I'd feel better after some writing. I opened dragonlore.doc. Evan had been right. This was boring as poo poo. I deleted the file.
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Jan 31, 2019 08:52
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Anomalous Blowout posted:Solitair’s lost control hard enough that it approached TURN LEFT, DALE! NOO!! territory. (Side note, whatever happened to that guy?)
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Feb 2, 2019 23:04
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Absolutely devoid of creativity or motivation these past few days, due to stress from things in my life that are not Thunderdome bullshit. Will post a redemption when I can think straight.
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Feb 4, 2019 03:57
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Feb 4, 2019 17:08
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curlingiron posted:This is bullshit. Brawl. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Feb 4, 2019 |
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Feb 4, 2019 19:52
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Djeser posted:Wow! With everyone so eager to brawl and judge brawls, this week's judge slots must be all filled up by now!
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Feb 4, 2019 19:53
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Updated prompt to give another full weekend.
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Feb 4, 2019 20:06
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Kickass prompt. In.
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Feb 5, 2019 03:25
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Thunderdome 2019teen: I was really worried that it was unclear that Sk'Kul was supposed to be a skeleton
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Feb 5, 2019 04:17
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 Curlingmojo brawl results Both of these stories are worthy contenders, but only one is a valid entry! Sebmojo is disqualified for writing a grippingly dramatic exploration of Okinawan culture, which even he distinguishes from Japanese culture in the story. Congratulations on your victory, curlingiron. Crits by the end of the week. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 10:50
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All righty.
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Feb 26, 2019 11:30
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Curlingmojo brawl results, again Sebmojo shared an article clarifying the historical context of his story. I see that I was mistaken. Sebmojo wins, but curlingiron's story is still good.
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Feb 26, 2019 11:35
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Sham-mojo or mojo-bamina! or whatever brawl Technically Correct 307 words I don't have a story. I had an idea for a story, but it turned out to be terrible. It was based on stupid Internet drama. Some rear end in a top hat would be arguing a technically correct point with someone else, and then a third character would start arguing that the first was an rear end in a top hat – a technically correct point – but would keep at it longer than the original argument. An elegantly ironic plot that I soon realized would be unreadable as an actual story when I tried to sit down and write it. I haven't been able to come up with anything better, though. The past two weeks have been the absolute worst time for me to even think about Thunderdome; I've been sick and flagging in my coursework for grad school, letting it pile up and ending up with less and less free time, and what free time I have had I've spread obscenely thin trying to keep up with rash promises made to too many friends, along with still being hamstrung by illness (very distractingly painful inflamed lymph node, along with some kind of muscle pain in my legs, although both have subsided in the past few days). I haven't even been able to get my crits together; of course I'm not going to have a story. I'm sorry to sebmojo for being a stupid little bitch and not doing my research when I tried to judge the brawl with curlingiron at 1 in the morning, and I'm sorry that I haven't given him a real story to win against now. But it was a foregone conclusion that he'd win anyway, and all that really matters at this point is that I show. That I do the technically correct thing and at least post some words about someone who is technically correct. So here they are.
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Mar 13, 2019 00:05
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In.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:54
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There's definitely something city-like about an airport, with all the shops and all the people running and riding around.
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Dec 4, 2019 04:54
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City of Refuge 521 words Another pull forward, another pull forward. The air surrounds and passes like a river; my breaths are swept instantly away in the current. It is a cold day for this, but I do not care; it is never too cold to be free. (Maybe on a damp day. Right now, the white sun is enough.) I am still as the ground shivers beneath me. Another pull forward, another pull forward. All around, the city pretends to push in. The racing towers crush each other above; the cars and pedestrians crowd together in lines, clumps. It would like to swallow me up, but I travel in it like a tapeworm, happy to take from it. Another pull forward, another pull forward. I stand tall and fall ahead toward the silver rainbow in the east, the gleaming gateway. I compress and swing up, extend. There is no thinking but doing. I am free as a god. But I do think. I can get away from anything but myself. In slow motion like a bad movie I see the bridge explode. The pink elephant that I can't not think about. The latest headstone in a cemetery that sprawls wide and wider. Is there a way to dig that corpse back up? An overpass wraps past, and I tear myself back out of the broken web. All around, the city pretends to push in. The light changes ahead, and I loosen my grip (I didn't even realize that I had squeezed) and fly effortless, a superstar on the widest screen, past the rooted audience at 24 faces per second. Keanu on wires. It's pathetic, bathetic. I know that I am really Keanu in rags, pasty and frail when I don't have the luxury of pretending otherwise. The city is a strange place – only out in the crowd can I imagine that I'm alone. When I withdraw back into my own space, away from the noise and press, a mob surrounds my mind and corners it. Another pull forward, another pull forward. I veer and surge. Here I am cold; the buildings block the sun and the rainbow alike. It's funny how small the city is, reduced to a few blocks, now that it's so big around me. A kind of reverse foreshortening. Maybe this is how all big things are, all cities and crowds. The mob means nothing if I fight it one at a time. Cars are crossing now; for the first time, I have to skid and settle. I look back at the miles of territory that I have conquered foot by foot. I am not frayed and sparking here. I had been skirting my own thoughts in fear, but the problems begin to shrink timidly from me into resolution. I am not going to disturb any graves, try to jump any bridges. Here, I am not stupid enough for that anymore. Another pull forward, another pull forward. Above, sun again and the gateway looming in seraphic light. I shift and curve against the air, swept seamlessly over the rustling ground as I cross the threshold, loop back, flick twice for the climb.
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Dec 9, 2019 10:08
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Yeah, it seems like a very easy problem to solve.
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Dec 25, 2019 19:51
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