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i'd like to unburden another
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Aug 20, 2019 19:54
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 15:48 |
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 in(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 27, 2019 17:04
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in
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Sep 6, 2019 23:30
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in
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Sep 19, 2019 00:39
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yes
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Oct 22, 2019 14:05
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1101 words pharmacy Take one then call me in the morning (whenever that is) flerp fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Dec 30, 2019 |
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Oct 28, 2019 04:48
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Anomalous Amalgam posted:We need a judge, a prompt and someone to alert SlipUp's next of kin... it's gonna get messy. anomalus slip-up brawl genre: horror restriction: no supernatural elements prompt: in the transition between seasons, it awakens 1500 words due 11/8 11:59pm PST toxx for me slip up and anomalous
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Oct 29, 2019 01:55
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ant! ant! ant!
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Nov 5, 2019 04:56
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in peace (no hellrule plz)
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Nov 12, 2019 20:51
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anomalous slipup brawl both of these are, well, i wouldnt say suck, but generally are just kinda eh anomalous the story is mostly a summary of things happening. there's not much going on, but it's short, so maybe that's excusable. but there's just nothing really there. there are just kinda events happening but like i have no reason to care who any of these characters are and there really isnt anything happening. there's some vagueness with why theyre being ignored or mistreated or what have you, but it never culminates into anything meaningful or scary or interesting. its just kinda like eh here's some things happening that are kinda sad kinda scary and then ur off on ur way. it fails to really elicit any emotions since the narration feels detached from the characters. it feels sort-of like reading a wikipedia article, where it can be vaguely interesting, but all of the emotion and human elements of it are hidden. slipup this feels mostly like a character study except the character being studied is dull and cliche. like, he's just a rugged oldboy whose wife died and wants to rough it out in the wilds. it's not very clear on the setting, and im not sure if this is supposed to be like some apocalypse scenario (i dont think so) or some supernatural thing (i hope not given the prompt) or if it's just normal contemporary life and the guy just wants to die in the woods. but the main fault is that, the character is just not very interesting. he doesnt feel any real complicated emotions, he doesnt feel like he has any advanced depth or backstory. he has a dead wife which is like wow isnt that obvious and his relationship with her isnt expanded on, his relationship with the outside world isnt explained, and his reasoning for wanting to go into a cabin to be murdered by a bear not hit on in any meaningful way. also oh my god your tenses SlipUp posted:The snow melts slowly day by day present tense . I sit with my propane lamp and stare out the window, wondering if this year is the year present. Every year there's a little less of the wilds each time present tense. Nature is poked and prodded, herded into an ever smaller corner present. An animal is most dangerous there present. you have to decide what tense you want to use and stick with it. and for the love of god dont tense shift in the middle of a paragraph jfc results im not happy with either of these but i flipped a coin and then ignored it and instead say that slipup wins because while these are both sketches of stories, slipup's lines were a bit more clear
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Nov 16, 2019 19:20
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Mist flerp fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Dec 30, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 05:02
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in
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Nov 20, 2019 15:15
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwnLlQ6t2uE 800 words The Distance Between Atoms flerp fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 30, 2019 |
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Nov 25, 2019 06:14
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week 382: turn on your monitor hello, im gonna abuse my dumb idiot powers to force you to do things that i think are interesting and u probably dont but oh well guess u shouldve won u idiot. so this week i want stories about internet communication. that is, i want stories about the interactions we have with people that are hundreds or thousands of miles away who we may never see or even learn the names of. i imagine this shouldnt be too difficult to understand since all of you are extremely online idiots on a dead and gay forum who are competing in a no-stakes fiction writing contest. anyways here's generally what i want: stories that are generally based on reality. basically, little to no speculative fiction. ill be lenient and say if you really wanna invent some form of new internet communication, then okay, but it should be reasonable to exist in like the next 5-10 years. stories that are focused on the interactions people have on the internet. it doesnt need to be ONLY through the internet, so you can have them meet irl (in real life), but these kinds of relationships we have with others through online communication should be the main focus of your story otherwise, that's really it. you can still have magical or surreal stuff so long as the focus of the story is on these new relationships we have with weirdos on twitter oh yeah and gently caress it if you sign up you get a song from a video game i like. you dont even have to use it i just had fun doing that last time rules: no poetry, no google doc links word limit: 1500 sign ups close friday 11:59 pm pst submissions close sunday 11:59 pm pst judges: me Jon Joe another someone entrants: Simply Simon Black Griffon sephiRoth IRA Anomalous Amalgam Something Else Carl Killer Miller Mrenda Thranguy sparksbloom flerp fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 09:21
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Simply Simon posted:Hit me with some sweet tunes for I'm in yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMd7RQrkIF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNSgdZ7-O_g sephiRoth IRA posted:In please https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJTbflaNnAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-fmYK81MUQ Something Else posted:I’m in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6cSbof7Pik Carl Killer Miller posted:Oh, I'm also IN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uocHYbEbWSE
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Nov 26, 2019 21:14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09KoR7g018
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Nov 27, 2019 18:30
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5u1PS1dD_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnLQnX7BPeU
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Nov 28, 2019 21:13
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hope all the domers here had a great thanksgiving. few entrants but that's okay it's a holiday weekend sign-ups are closed! good luck all. please do not fail 
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Nov 30, 2019 09:00
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entries closed
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Dec 2, 2019 14:57
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results ok so im gonna do this quick because busy week. this week was mostly, again, a lot of meh. i appreciate u all attempting tho. winner goes to Mrenda. this is still a very flawed story imo but was marginally capable of mustering up some feeling in my co-judge and i have to concede, it was the most successful this week. HM im giving to Simply Simon. my co-judge had it as the loser, but hey, im the head judge so nuts to him ig. it’s not written terribly well, but i thought it was fun and when i reread it, i found myself wanting to keep reading it rather than skim through it like most other stories this week. DM goes to Something Else. I was actually really excited to read this story when i first started because i thought it was gonna be a fun story about a dad learning more about his teenager on the internet. instead it became incredibly dark and cemented its DM with an astoundingly confusing and terrible last line. Loss goes to Carl Killer Miller. im sorry, but, way too many characters, boring chat log dialogue, none of the characters are interesting, tension is at a 0, and i didnt care for anyone. its premise was alright, but the execution was dull and i couldnt care more about the story.
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Dec 4, 2019 01:30
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Mrenda This won, mainly, because it was effective at creating a good amount of emotional resonance, but i have a couple of issues with it. It feels like it tells rather than shows in opportunities where the telling feels unnecessary and really pulls away from the effect of the moment. Such as this section quote:I’m afraid of my friends’ boyfriends, never mind their boyfriends’ single guy friends. Not always. I can eat a meal with my friends and their guys. I can have one, maybe two drinks. They have three, then four, often five, more. I’m afraid. They can handle their drinks. I can’t. I can’t handle them. They’re so tall, standing around us. They always stand. Towering over us. Even the small guys; pressing his legs against me. I have space. I’m not trapped. I’m loved by the people around me. I’m cared for. I’m safe. His hands press down on the table as though we’re a military map. A conquest. He’s so close. As though he could reach out and kill. I think if you had kept out those feelings of fear, of allowing these images to rest and for us to implicitly feel that fear would work stronger. Right now, it feels too direct in what it’s saying, and as such, the images feel weaker and too obvious. And things like, “I’m lobed by the people around me,” well, it isn’t really in the story is it? Like you say it is, but we don’t ever see a friend, and don’t see what love is. It feels like the character is saying to that themselves (which might be intentional) but I think making it more of an image makes the impact of truthfulness (or not) hit harder. Other times, the telling kind of undermines what we’re supposed to feel, mostly in terms of how Ronan is described. He’s described vaguely, and the character just says, “I like him,” but it’s never explained further. He’s just kinda described as this ideal but it’s never anything specific. I’m not sure if this is intentional -- if it’s an attempt to show that the character doesnt really fully understand why she likes Ro, but I feel like it sort of undermines the theme of this story. Of overcoming trauma and to take risks again after the trauma, it feels like there should be someone more special, or if it isn’t somebody special, it should be more on the character’s end of their decision, or at least, I feel like that would make the story more effective. I also think this can be edited down a bit. It sags in places, and its stream-of-consciousness-esque feeling is fine, but it think it can be pared down and more effective. It’s also rather scattered, which is intentional, but i think the scattered thoughts can kind of distract from what’s going on. For example, that section with the guy in the library made me think it was going on during the story and wasn’t a recollection. sephiRoth IRA This is just an eh story for me and it’s one of those that I always have the hardest time to critique. It wears its premise on its sleeves and carries it through to its effective, but predictable, conclusion. I do have some issues on the execution. It’s not very clear that the protagonist is Puckmaster, as the main focus is on BluesFan up until like 5 or 6 paragraphs. The conclusion also doesnt really make sense as a “internet but a real place” thing. Like, how do you get banned and then just get washed ashore to another forum? The one-to-one metaphor you were employing was kinda betrayed to make that work. But overall, the major issues is that it’s not very interesting. Like, after the initial “internet BUT WHAT IF REAL LIFE” you dont really do anything unique or surprise. Like, haha forums are dumb and ban people and sometimes some forums are good (well, we dont really know that forum is good since he just showed up) but it isnt really surprising or interesting besides it’s initial premise, and tbh, the premise is pretty eye-rolly anyways so idk it doesnt impress. Simply Simon I enjoyed this quite a fair bit. The dialogue is rather stilted, I will say, but I enjoyed the relationship between the two, and was probably the closest to what I wanted out of this. A real look at the odd relationships we have (relative) strangers on the internet. And this takes it in an entertainingly, but also real, direction. Steph being weirdly nonplussed at being gored by a boar, and their emotional issues, feels like it’s done with relative tact and in a way that feels maybe a bit exaggerated, but still feels relatable when it comes to dealing with people who are mental health issues. I like the bits of humor in here. The little haha of eating the boar pieces really helped pull the piece outside of its darker tone but still being believable. The last couple of lines were really fun. You were also able to effectively show character actions just through dialogue alone. I think the main issues is that the dialogue is, overall, just a bit too stilted and unrealistic, and that it feels a bit too bloated. I would try and cut down some bits of it and see what stands, but I think this was fun but also emotionally effective. Carl Killer Miller So, while Simon’s had stilted dialogue, this piece had the same issue. But here, it doesnt have any of Simon’s strengths. There are too many characters and none of them are given really any interesting personalities. Like, they’re all 1 dimensional (especially the kid), and when they are killed off, we don’t really care. I think that’s the main issue. Without any real interesting characters in this situation, it ends up feeling flat. It isn’t TERRIBLE but it’s just mostly boring and I have no reason to care because I have no reason to be invested with the characters. There are just WAY too many and none of them are distint that I couldn’t even begin to describe any of them off the top of my head. sparksbloom This feels… potentially problematic? But really, my main issue is that I think the tone stays too consistent throughout. Like, person with mental health issues does something stupid on the internet and it cascades from there is fine, but I don’t really know what this story is saying? The internet can be bad for your mental health? I mean, sure, but I feel like there isn’t really like a turn in this story? Where it like, kind of recontextualizes or tries to make sense of what’s going in this story. It’s kinda just like oh yeah it kinda sucks that people with mental health issues are on the internet and people dont rly understand that and it can lead to them being hurt. And sure, that’s a fine enough message, but one that I feel like might be a little too obvious? Or, at least in this story, is a bit too direct and feels almost too cartoon-y that, i dont want to presume that you dont respect the subject matter, but it does feel somewhat disrespectful. Again, i dont think you personally are making fun of it, but it does feel like the story is. I also think where this story really falter is the line “hey just wanted to make sure you were still taking…” because it is just wayyyyyyyyyy to direct and i audibly groan and was like if there’s one thing you can trust your reader in understanding this story, it’s that this character is absolutely an unmedicated person w/ a mental health issue. Anomalous Amalgam This has a lot of amateur writer issues, which is nice for me since I get an easy crit job here. Ok, first, unnecessary descriptions. Read this: quote:Only illuminated by the light of her monitor, Julia lounged lazily in the pale glow. Her left foot was planted firmly in the carpet with an elbow digging into that thigh. An extended hand rested on W, A, S, D and Space, out of instinct. The other arm was draped across the desk and those fingers collectively rested near enter and backspace. Now, the question is, what does this description tell us. Well, it tells us Julia is relaxed when she’s talking to this person. You could also argue that she’s a gamer because her fingers are on WASD and Space (instead of, say, the home row). But there’s a couple of issues with this. 1) do you need to waste this many words to show this? Like, is it worth to have ALL of these descriptions to portray those pretty simple ideas. But there’s also 2) could you portray this in a way that maximizes the value of your words? For example, take Simon’s story, and see how he uses that the characters are gamers to help contextualize their relationships. He is able to use the details to both show some personality, like Thundershitter, but also showcase where their relationship came from. The quote is an excellent of televisionitis, as well, because you do not need that much description. Do we need to know it was specifcally her left foot in the carpet? Or an elbow digging into a thigh? Why is it important for us to know what specific keys her fingers were resting over? The answer is, we don’t. As flash fiction writers (and as a writer in general), you need to be aware of what needs to be said and what isnt. The story doesnt concern the exact place of her arms and elbows and whatever. Just say, Julia was resting on the floor, and leave it at that. That’s all we need to know. The other issue is that you tell and dont show. Like here: quote:Julia smiled. She hadn’t intended it, but her heart did swell up a bit more when she thought of August. She enjoyed his persistence and matter of fact nature even if he did occasionally come off as abrasive. You really don’t need this. Like, we already know this, or we should know this, because of all the dialogue we’ve had between the characters. If we didnt know this, you had failed as an author. Saying it outright doesnt help your case. So be confident, and let your words stand on their own. Thranguy This has good descriptions for a week that lacked a lot of strong physical description, but the issue here was that, as I went through it, I realized that there wasn’t a lot of strong emotional energy here. Like, I get what the story is trying to do. That an internet community rallies behind a single figure and brings unlikely people together. But like, we don’t really feel what that’s like. The character’s descriptions are nice, but I never really feel like the character was that intensely involved, or that he was really feeling anything super powerful. To me, I think the main thing was an unlikely group of people getting involved and bonding over something both unusual and sad. But we dont really see that. It’s mostly glossed over and summarized, and we see no real interactions between people, no real emotions shown, no complicated feelings based on this odd convergence of weird relationships and interests. Like, you just say two of them got married because of this. Why didnt you SHOW them getting together? That wouldve been infinitely more interesting. Something Else This story. Oof. When I started reading this, as an extremely online teenager emotionally distant from my parents, I was actually kinda excited. I was hoping this would be a story about a father learning to accept that his teenager may be interested in things he doesnt understand, but that they are ultimately making him happy so that’s okay. Instead, the kid is in some weird alt-right discord, which, i mean, okay, that’s fine. I’m not gonna judge even tho i was rly looking forward to a different kind of story. But then it’s kinda… confusing. Like the dad character is weird, but in a way that i cant really get a bead on. I mean, he names his son Plato for god’s sake. He’s strange and odd and the way he speaks is unsettlingly, which I think is intentional? But he also feels genuine, a father who doesnt really understand his son and what he’s interested because teenagers are weird and assholes. But then he’s also so easily corrupted by this hate? Or like, he was so gullible that he didnt know these kinda of people existed? He was THAT naive? Really? I don’t know, I can’t find the character believable. I do kinda like the ending, with the father’s assumptions ultimately challenged and proven wrong, which is nice because it wasnt the father actually just assuming but instead directly asking his son what he feels (although I do think it’s also kinda hosed that the father is just willing to let his son keep posting in some horrible alt-right discord, especially given that he’s found his son directly posting poo poo but hey fiction can have characters be bad parents). But the ending line is just… what????????? Baffling. Impossible to understand. But the main issue is that the protagonist just feels like such a bizarre, inconsistent figure, but not in a way that’s believable. Honestly, I feel like it could work, and could actually be really strong, but maybe this isn’t the right context and story to explore this kind of character.
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Dec 6, 2019 07:24
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in
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Dec 13, 2019 23:00
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Terminally Online flerp fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 30, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 05:03
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in give me some reaction that i probably studied before but forgot
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Dec 17, 2019 00:19
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in (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 24, 2019 03:20
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my only complaint is that the toxx flash rule trend is pretty annoying. as somebody who likes to toxx w/o getting a flash rule, i dont like specifying and some weeks i actually havent entered because of that. im cool w/ “if u want a flash rule, then u need to toxx” but not cool w/ “if u toxx u get a flash rule” when we have a de facto rule of toxx if u failed last week (and i find toxxing personally an effective way of me actually submitting)
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Dec 25, 2019 18:41
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 15:48 |
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yall being like “yeah crit more” but not “yeah i should crit more” quote this post with a story link and ill crit any story this year or any other year. i dont even have a limit. just crit is what my mom always used to say
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Dec 27, 2019 20:39
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