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In christ name, I grete thee and wolde acompanye thee on thy pilgrimage.
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Nov 2, 2020 18:22
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:ENCOUNTER: "And shame it is, if a preest take keep, A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep." I wolde have my bed clened. (-100 wordes)
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Nov 3, 2020 05:46
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G7, if thou woldest.
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Nov 5, 2020 06:17
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On mine ferie comen on board An Oxfordman learn'd with worde. "My rime for my fare" quod he. "Oh, truly but nev'r!" quod me, "For thy riming is worthe nat a turd." edit: To the Hedge Mage: I wolde pay one hundred wordes to be invisible! Weltlich fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 02:46
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* Monday's spooky castle: PURIFIED (-100 words) * Tuesday's terrible inn: DRUNK, now singing "Lie still, little bottle / Don't twist, it ain't twistin' time / With every move you make you just disintegrate my ever-troubled mind" * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like someone who does not understand the concept of personal space?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Foggy Barksworth demands BROWN * Thursday's Encounter: INVISIBLE (-100) * Limerick: entered (+50) Won Special Prize (+0) Began with 1500 words. Currently has 1400 words The Shipman’s Tale: The Mone Seilor 745 wourdes The monthe of Mai can yet blow chele wind, So the Capitane took the hete withinne The publick house with ale, corny and moyste, Aside the hot fyre he rested his joyntes. In bestrode a manne weringe a maske so brauwn, Isen the Capitaine, and then sitten doun. His clethes wer fin, and of foreign lande, Withe a silken girdel of a scarlett bande. “Are you the Capitane from Bristol?” he asked, Bute no muscle moved bihinde his maske. “I wolde be that manne,” the Capitane said, “But sholde I grete you with joy or drede?” “That, I leve to you,” said the straunger, “I afound you this night to propos a wagour. Thy cogge is swifte, with a fin crewe— But I bete I kno something which it cannot do.” Whanne the Capitane was in his cuppe, He herd not a wagour that he colde pass uppe. “Speake not ill of my bote, handsome straunger, For my cogge and crewe fear no daunger! We have seilled acrois alle the seas. No finer seillors will you finde, thanne these. We gan seil aniwhere, this is no bost, Nou speke your wagour and drinke a tost!” The masked straunger reised his cuppe of ale, “Thenne I wolde have you make this travail— I disput not the things you have don, But I woulde have you seile to the Mone. If you have corage to take this darre, You can fille your cogge with silver there. And here is the cost sholde you faile— Your shippe will be mine to seile!” The Capitane reised his cuppe heigh, Nodded his hed, then drank it drie. Thenne he stombled out from the publik in, Gan doun to his cogge and ishippen. The seillors ofcast the ropes by quayside, And the cogge seiled from herberwe on ev’ntide. Whanne they wer asee, Capitane called the Bo’sun, “Lette us chace the Mone to the horisoun. Gather the menne and reise the seiles To ride the winge of the quikening Eurus! We gan to the west to catch the Mone, Just afore it sinks into the sea at daun.” The menne gave up a loude chere, Seiles filled with winde, the Bo’sun stered The cogge to the weste all thrugh the night— Maken chace at the Mone’s silvery light. Bute the Sonne iwakied in the este Afore the Mone had taken its reste. The Capitane istonded and spoke to the menne, “We waite until e’en and seile weste ayen. Thrugh many longe journei you have ben— We will catch the Mone, and seile until thanne.” They gan wel on for fourtenight and seven, Founde the world’s corner, and fel into heven. The cogge seiled thrugh a nebule thickke, The menne were afeared they had don wicke. Bute the Mone’s light brok thrugh, the Capitane cried, “Lok afore the bowgh—a quiksilver tide! We gan beldli wher non gan bifore— Out the erthe’s windoue, and in the Mone’s dor!” The cogge drifted upon the shining stronde, And setled itself on the silver se-sand. The Mone underfot, and the Erthe in the ski, Alle menne set awerk bifore the heigh tide. With shovel and chipaxe they gan onshore, And filt silvery sand into the cogge’s store. They laboured for hours, til the sonne wente to bed, And the toun of Bristol come soon overhed. “Ishippen quik!” belwed the Capitane loude, “The cogge is laden ful and will drop doun thrugh the cloudes!” As the Mone climben up to midnight’s pek, The cogge sliped from the shole and fel like a streke Thrugh the ski over Bristol, doun to the Erth The bote crasched sorewful onto the chirche! Oute of the cogge, the silver sand poured, But alle menne were dead, who wer aboard. Whanne Seinte Jourdan isen what befel, He sent the menne to Heven, and the Capitane to Helle. The Capitane iwakied with a sterte, Smeled sulfur, and colde not fele his herte. He satte on silver sand aside a fyri river, And thugh the hete was infirnal, he colde not stoppe a chivere. “And lok at thy reward for wining my wagour!” Said a familiar voice—the brauwn masked straunger. “What wikednes is this?” the Capitane demaunded “The wagour was wonne, this is underhonded!” “I wagoured that you would seile to the Mone, Not that thy cogge would com saufly home.” And remeven his maske to shew a face lik a gote Said, “You have thy silver, and now I have thy bote!”
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Nov 9, 2020 08:17
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Edit: Revision to Title Above: The Nebulous Shipman's Tale: The Mone Seilor
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Nov 9, 2020 08:22
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 That trip back in time was fun, but now it's time to the future. A future that kind of was, and kind of wasn't. I'm talking about the Space 70's. When were the Space 70's you might ask? Well, they sort of straddled the 70's and the 80's. From about 1975 to 1984. It was a magical time when we thought things were only going to get better, and cooler, and weirder. And goddamn were the Space 70's weird. I remember this one time that Starbuck tried to quit flying in the middle of a war to be an agent for some lounge singers with four eyes. No, they weren't wearing glasses. They literally had four eyes. Two mouths, too... But that's a story for later. So listen, I want you to write me a story inspired by the Space 70's, of up to 2000 words. It doesn't have to be specifically about the Space 70's, or even set in the Space 70's, or even be Sci-Fi. (Though that might win you extra points!) But it does have to feature unbridled optimism about the future, and it's gotta have serious funk. Don't be afraid to let your freak flag fly! If you request it, I'll give you an 8-track song to inspire you. If you really want to, you can  for a hell rule. NOTE - I do not give out easy hell rules! You can just if you feel like it for the impetus to write, too - but make it clear that you do or do not want the hell rule to go along with it.Must: Write a story with up to 2000 words. Write a story featuring wild optimism about the future. Write a story that isn't afraid to get strange. Can't Erotica Fan Fiction* Google Docs Editing Your Post Might, for bonus points Write a story that's actually set in the Space 70's. *Note: While brazen Fan Fiction is no good, you can make references to events in the Space 70's as if they were actual, historical events. DEADLINES: Signup - 11:59PM PST, Friday the 13th (Don't let that harsh you!) Completion - 11:59PM PST Sunday the 15th Judges: Weltlich sparksbloom tbd Those what will free their minds, asses to follow: Djeser w/o Hell RuleTharanguy GrandmaParty Staggy - Red Hot Mama by Parlaiment Funkadelic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xmdadYujj4 Applewhite - More Bounce to the Ounce by Zapp and Roger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_IPV2zeDIc flerp w/o Hell RuleGorka Nae Weltlich fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Nov 14, 2020 |
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Nov 10, 2020 23:45
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Staggy posted:In, give me a song please. Red Hot Mama by Parlaiment Funkadelic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xmdadYujj4
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Nov 11, 2020 00:22
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Applewhite posted:IN. Song please. More Bounce to the Ounce by Zapp and Roger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_IPV2zeDIc
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Nov 11, 2020 04:19
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp8_yFAABag WEEK CCCCXXXII JUDGEMENT A small but fun week, thanks to all who submitted, and NOBODY FAILED which is amazing. This is another week where the overall quality of submissions was really high. Please, ‘Dome, go back to writing lovely so I can throw shade whilst judging, without feeling bad. Staggy gets the Win. There were some proofreading issues here that nearly cost you that, but overall the story nailed the prompt, and the strengths of that weird, optimistic storytelling were enough to carry through. GrandmaParty gets an HM. Strong character work and a compelling story. The dialogue was tight, and it was a fun read. Good job! Nae also gets an HM. This nearly was my pick for win this week, but the optimism was just a little (lot) too tainted. Still, it was an excellent story, and managed to put some serious weird in Applewhite regrettably takes a Loss. You flew too close to sun of Ironic Tropes, and everyone (almost no-one) knows what happens when iron is fused in the heart of a massive star (it explodes.) CRITS Staggy – Getaway Trip From the opening, I’m enjoying this already. I note that the word subliminal is used, might have meant subluminal, but given the funk levels, I’m not sure. Just saw it again, so I’m going to assume you meant that and not superluminal. This is a minor nitpick on my part, but if the ship is moving then I’d go with superluminal, rather than superliminal. Liminal implies some sort of wormhole or “being in two places at once,” so when you talk about “superliminal speeds” it’s sort of nonsensical. Using ants as an integral part of the ship is a nod Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. Not sure if that was intentional, but it’s a good book to reference. Another nitpick is that Mama is italicized early on, making it clear that it’s the name of the ship, but then it switches to non-italicization after that. I think this is a case where when it’s hard to tell which is correct, because one case is “ship as a thing” and one is “ship as a character,” and the story does a good job of blurring the lines between the two. Personally, I’d say use italicization all the time because the other ships named are italicized, and it keeps the style consistent. But, all of that is just nitpicking and I don’t want it to diminish what is otherwise a really great story. This is the sort of story I was hoping to read when I threw the prompt down this week. It’s colorful, optimistic, weird, and entertaining. Normally I’m sort of a stickler about AI’s sounding “too human” but in the context of this story, it works. I really like the little tweak that the SOS isn’t just answered, but it’s answered by many other ships – even if they’re not going to get there in time, there is no reluctance to try. And the ending is just Space 70’s as hell. This is a strong story to start the week on, and you’ve set the standard to beat. We’ll see if anyone else manages to do it. Djeser – First Contact Protocol This is totally a case of “Doctor, heal thyself” but it feels to me like the first two sentences of the story could be cut. There’s a temptation I succumb to all to often to give a five-senses scene setting intro to a story, and in this case, I don’t think it needs it. Just opening with getting touched and wrapped in cloth by strange hands would make a much punchier opening. The description of Telaion makes me want to see a Frank Frezetta illustrated cover of a dog-eared copy of a 70’s era paperback. That’s a good thing. But overall the story sidles up to the edge of weird without ever really taking the plunge, and I’m trying to put my finger on why. I think it might be a case of worldbuilding taking up too much wordcount, and the central conflict of Telaion and Jone sort of gets a speed-run. There’s a monster fight and even though Jone is injured, it ends up feeling like “oh this is just something that happens, do I still have time to make dinner, or should we order out?” This is a story that really starts where it ends, when Telaion sheds their skin. That’s when the optimism and the strangeness starts. GrandmaParty – Where to Go When the World Doesn’t Need You This one starts out pretty grim, a really Heavy Metal vibe to it. Doesn’t mean that it won’t end on an upnote, though, so we’ll see! I think the characters are working pretty well here. Weird, but relatable. The idea of instant reincarnation technology reminds me a lot of parts of Stross’ Glasshouse. I think if I were to focus on one aspect to improve, it would be pacing within paragraphs. You’re falling into a trap that I fall into a lot, which is the need to go “This happened, then this happened, then this happened” which if you’re writing a report is a good thing, but I find that it robs a lot of punch from the action. Here’s a brief line crit: quote:
But, I’ll be totally straight with you: This is my favorite story that you’ve written so far. It’s very Heavy Metal-esque, and you pull it off pretty well. The character work here is strong, and it’s a very readable and enjoyable story. Nae – Love Train From the intro, I’m into this. Weird right out of the gate. Also, I’m interested to see where this goes with the optimism angle. With Jimmy, Davey and the Marys, there seems to be an element of “tainted optimism” that is very period specific – the burnouts from the 60’s trying to keep that momentum going and finding that it just won’t hold together. There’s a real feel of threat under the façade of love. If that’s what you were going for, then good job. Reading further, yeah, there’s a lot of the honest bleakness of the 70’s bleeding in here. Goddamn. The pacing is really, really good. The acceleration of the story toward the conclusion makes sense both in a narrative and kinetic sense. I guess if I have to offer one nitpick, it’s the paragraph about Jimmy buying and getting the train on the rails. The issue that I have with it is that it opens a can of worms. It poses the question, “how did Jimmy get tracks and a train to this field?” If left unanswered, then it presents a challenge to the suspension of disbelief. If answered, then it’s a massive digression that does nothing for the story. I’d be tempted to just cut that paragraph wholesale. It’s enough that he’s got “family money,” and in a story that’s about hippie burnouts trying to launch a train to the stars, we can hand-wave away the logistics of building a railroad. It’s bleak, but it’s a contender. Gorka – Beyond the boundary So, once again from the “Doctor, heal thyself” files, I think this is a story that really starts about 1/3 of the way into the wordcount. I think there’s sort of an albatross around sci-fi writer’s necks that they need to talk about why people are in a place, and what kind of vehicle they’re in, and what kind of technology they’re using. So we end up burning a lot of words on worldbuild-y type writing that doesn’t really advance the story, and ends up distracting from character interactions. When Steve and Ethan cross the boundary, that’s where the story really started for me. It’s also where the story-logic starts to make sense. If you keep the intro parts, the idea of having data-eating insects is a lot harder to buy into, because there’s a ship that had to travel lightyears to the edge of space, and obey the laws of physics, and get built by people who are presumably not idiots. All of those ideas make it hard to believe that data-insects are things that periodically infest starships, because they seem like a major problem that would have been solved for. But if you just have them spring into being beyond the edge of space, then they’re easier to believe, because who the serious gently caress knows what lies in the great beyond. I guess what I’m saying is that introducing weird elements into a story is easier when you just roll with it from the jump instead of trying to play it straight then springing it on the reader halfway in. Other than that, the only thing I’ll harp about is the over-use of exclamation points in dialogue. Ethan’s dialogue uses them frequently enough in casual dialogue (“Don’t be a wet blanket!”) that it robs impact when they’re used in actual exclamatory dialogue (“We are getting some computer bugs in the system!”). Applewhite – The Dark Planet I appreciate that you lean into the gimmick from the start, with the whole getting ready for FTL travel in 1997. Gone are the days. What I’m not sure of is the writing style that uses dialogue as a stand in for exposition. On one hand, if you’re doing it to tweak the nose of certain Sci-Fi authors *cough*DavidWeber*cough* then I’m generally on board. I think with the addition of the obvious Mary Sue character and all the other literary winks, I can safely assume you’re taking the piss instead of using obvious tropes with any level of sincerity. So technically speaking, I have no real gripes with the story’s composition, pacing, etc. I do think you took some risks here that didn’t necessarily pay off. The story’s a pretty obvious lampoon of 50’s through 80’s era Sci-Fi. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but for a 2000 word story, I think you tried to cram too many tropes into it, and it comes off as a “we fed an AI stories, and here’s what it produced” feel. I think that in a story of this length, you can tease out one or at max, two tropes and still have a serviceable story in the end. The ending left this one feeling pretty cookie-cutter. flerp – to those who stared at the stars and wanted to know them If Lovecraft wrote sweet, unracist, optimistic stories, I imagine they’d be something like this. For the most part, well done. I really appreciate that at it’s core, this story is about knowing, and being known – because to me that is the crux of the “benevolent explorer” idea in optimistic sci-fi. That said, the same “shave off the first few paragraphs” advice is given. The story really started at “The beginning was quiet.” And don’t take this as harsh criticism, because I really do like this piece, but this seems like less of a traditional story to me than a piece of weird monologue prose poetry. It doesn’t really tell a cohesive narrative, rather it evokes feelings. It does that very well. I also think this is an essential skill in the telling of “weird tales” where the speaker in a story might have begun to shed humanity. To me that’s the “stakes” in this story – it’s saying “no” when asked to return to the fold, and continuing to wander, venture, and in this case attempting to become a star, or the idealized notion of a star. So yeah, good job, I really enjoyed reading this. 2021 – Thranguy A very Tannhauser Gate opening, and another “narrator” driven story. Some seeming nods at Forever War, which is a good book to nod at if you’re talking about military sci-fi. So, some of my comments to flerp about pieces that evokes feelings rather than cohesive narrative also apply here. This is all world building, and it’s setting up a gritty foundation for a longer set of stories. It’s entertaining, and it piques my interest, but it falls short of being a story on its own merit. There weren’t any real stakes in the story, since it hopped from one vignette to the next. The way it was set up, as a sort of oral history of a war, ends up robbing the characters of a lot of agency. They don’t really have choices, just a recounting of deeds. As always, the prose is tight, and the character voices are strong. It’s not bad, it just feels like a solid elevator pitch for a 10 book KindleUnlimited series, rather than a 2000 word story in its own right.
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Nov 16, 2020 19:35
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Furthermore:
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Nov 16, 2020 21:01
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In. Forgot, Remember, and Song, please.
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Nov 16, 2020 21:27
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Witches Built My Hotrod 1500 Words You remember winning a race last night but you can't remember what the prize was - only that you weren't supposed to let it out of your sight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqQuihD0hoI When I finally caught up to him, he was plucking the last roller dog out of the machine. Goddamn animal didn’t even use the tongs. He just reached in barehanded and snagged it right off the rack before choking it down without a bun. “I see you seeing me,” he observed out loud. “What you want?” Turning to face me, I got a good look at the ridiculous platform shoes strapped onto his feet. Tall, clumsy looking, and easily bumping him up another foot in height, they told a lie about how nimble his hooves were. But then, this whole place was a lie. The Stryper World Tour t-shirt on his chest was probably the most honest thing in Hell. “Where is it?” I demanded. “You were there. You took my rucksack. I want it back.” I stood in the door to the 7-Eleven and looked him right in his infinity-sign eyes. There was no doubt that he was the one I’d been looking for since Charon dropped me off on this side of the river. Lethe’s not the ferryman’s usual route, but a mint-condition engine for a ’63 Stingray will buy you a lot of goodwill. Randy Pan—now over by the concession counter with a mouth full of roller dog— had been there when I hopped down on the farther shore. He’d offered to help me with my luggage, then beat feet with my stuff as soon as the ankle-deep river water went to work on my memories. By the time I’d waded out, I managed to remember my own name again. A couple hours later, I remembered why I’d come to Hell. Sometime later—(days, weeks? time is weird here)—I remembered where Clio’s coven had stashed a Galaxie 500. But I couldn’t remember what was in my rucksack. Clio said it was important, and not to let it out of my sight. I just hoped I could get it back before she showed up. For sure though, I remembered this rear end in a top hat with his dumb T-shirt, platform shoes, and high-water jeans. “Get lost, shade. On this side, nobody owes you nothing,” the satyr claimed, but I could see he was looking shifty. “If you don’t owe me anything, then you’ve been workin’ real hard to ghost me every time I get close. Seems like a lot of effort to keep slipping out on a shade, for no reason at all. Gimmie back my bag and we’re done with each other.” It was a good offer, I thought, but I guess he figured he was done with me no matter what. Stepping back on those platform-shod hooves, he lowered his head and bum rushed the door. I guess I had a muse looking out for me, because I rolled out of the way just in time to get a hoofprint on my shin instead of his horns in my belly. Before I could get up he was in the parking lot, sliding across the hood of his Dodge Demon. Yeah, it figured that the devil would be a Mopar man. Stumbling over to my car, I heard his engine thump to life. He J-turned his way out of the lot, almost tagging a fire hydrant with his taillight on the way out. By the time I had my keys in the ignition, he was hauling rear end up the road, headed toward Northridge. Unlike that rear end in a top hat, I backed into my spot, so I just rolled out onto Reseda Boulevard, blowing the mirage shimmers off the hot asphalt and wishing Clio’s sisters picked a car with A/C. Turned out my personal Hell was Reseda, California, and stuck in the mid-90s. The temperature, and the decade. Up ahead I could see the Demon weaving in and out of the shade traffic—dead valley girls in their VW Cabrios and ghostly midlevel managers in Broncos, eternally tooling along on autopilot. Randy, (I don’t know his real name, but he looks like a Randy), shifts gears and lanes trying to put as many red lights between him and me as he possibly can. Whining in protest, the Galaxie’s supercharger sucks air through the blower as I fly through a stale yellow just ahead of a shade cop’s cruiser. Don’t gently caress with the police in Hell. “Do what thou wilt” shall be the whole of their law, and what they wilt is unfettered police brutality. They ignore the Demon, but they certainly won’t ignore me, so I cut the speed to a scant 55 in a 40 and hope I haven’t tripped their radar. At Reseda and Sherman, I thought my luck ran out when I get stuck behind a top-down Lebaron, but then I saw Clio standing outside the Philips 76, smiling her crooked smile and waving me over. I just grinned and pulled into the lot. “Finally made it, huh?” I asked, opening the passenger’s side door from the inside. “Typical. You had time to put a new blower on it, but still haven’t gotten the door fixed.” she teased back, sliding onto the bench seat. “Looks like you beat me here, you still got the map?” The map? gently caress me. The map. Then it hits me. Back in the land of the living, I won that map off Randy in a drag race. Long story, but I won it fair and square. And then that ratfink stole it back. Clio said the only three things I had to do was keep the map safe, get into Hell without getting caught, and pick up the car. No sense in trying to hide it, so I came clean. Clio was understandably pissed. “Ok, but what I don’t get is: if he’s got my map, why’s he still hanging out here.” “I don’t know for sure,” she said, looking sour while trying to fan herself with a Del Taco menu, “Demon rules are weird. If I had to guess, I’d say that the map binds him to you because you won it in a fair bet. He’s probably trapped in here with you.” “Sounds like some witchy bullshit to me.” “My witchy bullshit would have had us out of Hell, if you hadn’t let him steal the map!” she shouted, hitting me with the menu. As she did, a throaty roar rose in volume and the Dodge Demon flew down the street, heading south. Speak of the devil… I floored it and whipped the Galaxie out into traffic, and Clio yelled at me to go faster as she hastily buckled up. The shades were thick on the road, but that meant that Randy had to deal with them, too. Within a few blocks, I was on his tail and this time he couldn’t shake us off. A quick lane change put us beside him as we blew through a traffic signal at Vanowen, and I could see his goat eyes widen with fear when he noticed Clio was in the car with me. She smiled, waved, and rolled down the window to shout, “Where’s our map, motherfucker!?” right as blue police lights started strobing in the rearview mirror. The revenant cops might have ignored Randy running a red light, but not us. As the Caprice interceptor closed in on us, the shade cop’s PA system was ordering me to pull over in a voice made of sandpaper and wasp stings. Instead, I gunned it. Pulling ahead of Randy, I merged in front of the Demon, and predictably, the Caprice merged in behind him. After that, I just had to tap of brakes. Randy’s platforms were great for keeping his feet out of Lethe’s water, but sucked at making fast brake and clutch moves. A split second later, the cop’s Caprice slammed into the Demon’s trunk, and Randy’s front bumper ate a streetlight in front of the 7-Eleven. Clio was out of the car before I could even stop, and I was rolling again before she could close the door behind her, with my rucksack in her hands. The roads cleared of shades, and for the first time since I got to Hell, I could drive south of Victory Boulevard—out of Reseda. “So, where to, now?” I asked. Clio squinted at the map. “Get on the Ventura Freeway, I guess.” “Then where?” “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, babe.” She smiled that crooked smile. “Maybe we follow the 101 to the 210, then to 15. We can be in Vegas before the sun goes down.” “Then Love is the Law,” Clio replied, grinning. She scooted over on the bench seat to lean into me, kicked off her shoes, and let her feet stick out the side window. After that, it was a quarter mile to the Ventura Freeway. Nothing but open road between us and whatever the afterlife version of Las Vegas held. The I revved the Galaxie’s engine as we went up the onramp, trying for escape velocity. The supercharger whined, and light bent in the blower.
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Nov 23, 2020 07:18
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Interprompt: Holiday Dinners of the Damned (300 Words) It's that time of year, again. The time when we gather together with people we normally try to avoid. In strange fellowship, we eat foods that we don't seem to eat any other time of the year. And through these rituals, we repair the rips in the fabric of our culture, and stumble on into another year. In 300 words, tell a small story about our year-end traditions that don't make any sense at all when taken out of context. It might be an anecdote about the office holiday party, a recipe for a vaguely disgusting food that is somehow delicious during the month of December, a list of gift ideas for the wing of the family we try to avoid, or anything else you feel like writing on the subject of culturally mandated merriment.
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Nov 30, 2020 18:19
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TD CDXXXIV: Cryptid Crossword Crits Tree Bucket For me, this started strong, then sort of went nowhere. The core idea is intriguing: a biotechnical spacecraft cashes into what is obviously earth, and to observe/interact the pilot and ship fabricate a biomechanical drone that is mistaken for a cryptid, and elements of deep time. Unfortunately, it sort of gets had waved away with “Guess I’ll be a human, now.” Then I guess a weed-named girl in a graveyard gets horned up for the pilot when he claws his way out from underground? It’s sort of a let down from what started as a really promising premise. In terms of technical aspects, I do want to POINT out how STRAINED the last scene seemed. Random all caps in the MIDDLE of sentences is a really annoying AFFECT. brotherly I’ve re-read this one a few times now, and I’ll be straight – it didn’t land with me like it did the other judges. There were a lot of little pet peeves that kept me from enjoying it. The internet posting, the bland distance in the relationship with Katie, a number of little typos and grammar mistakes (“retched” instead of “wretched”, etc). Here’s what I’ll focus on: The dead kid. The problem with using a dead child as a plot device in this is that you’ve played it so coy that the dead kid ends up being pretty inconsequential to the story itself. The story starts by talking about a funeral. Who’s funeral? This isn’t a mystery story. If this behavior is the result of a dead child, then don’t bury that lede. Because otherwise the main character is just some rear end in a top hat, not a grieving father. So, ok, we got a dead kid here. Did the Jersey Devil kill the kid? If so, the narrative is so vague that there’s no way to tell if you were hinting at that. Did the death of the kid spur Jim’s obsession with the Jersey Devil? If so, what’s the link? At the end of the day, the only reason for the dead kid in the story is to explain why Jim’s got a drone and some cheap binoculars. Nae Tonally, this reminds me a lot of a carnivore’s version of Watership Down. Or The Plague Dogs. If you’ve never seen The Plague Dogs, then DON’T. This year is a bummer enough without subjecting yourself to the weaponized sadness. Anyway… While I like the general tone of the story, I think it suffers from what a lot of high concept stories in TD do, namely that it spends the first half of the wordcount on setup, and only gets into the real story in the second half. This sort of skews the pacing and makes what should be a very tense and suspenseful confrontation with the (presumed) delivery driver into a sort of “Oh, well that’s ok then” moment. The other trap the story stumbles into is the “Animal using Human Words” pit. Plainly put, when we’re anthropomorphizing animals, there’s a tendency to try and write like they don’t know what a circus or delivery van is, even if they somehow know what a tent or a van is. The result is that it often feels like the writer is beating around the bush trying to describe a common object or concept. I guess my advice is that when writing a character that is non-human, but ascribed a human-like personality, let their non-humaness show through their actions instead of their internal monologue. Yoruichi Considering that you just washed Balcutha out into the sea, it means that you were the monster, all along! Overall, I like the story. It’s very much modern fantasy, and as such it dispenses with worldbuilding and any sort of apologetic “this is why things are weird” explanations. It just gets on with it. I will say though, that the thing that challenges my disbelief the most is NOT that there’s a dragon (physical or spiritual) in Lake Dunstan, but that a person can go sneaking around a hydroelectric plant in the middle of the night. Even if she’s the former administrator. Anyhow, it was a quick, fun read that didn’t have any glaring typos, and didn’t feel the need to hand-wring about being weird. Maugrim I was set up to hate this because of the bad pun in the title, but honestly it ended up being a very charming, bittersweet story. A lot of what I said about Yoruichi’s story applies here, as well – the lack of apology for fantasy is appreciated. Toward the middle of the story, I was getting concerned, because I thought you’d gone and spoiled the charm. I’m a softy for animals, and any sort of animal suffering in a story had better have a good reason, or risk me just walking away. Thankfully, you had a way to bring the story back to a very sweet ending, and I was glad for it. I guess my real criticism of the story is that not that I disliked the ending, (because I did), but rather that the pacing in the last ¼ of the story seemed rushed. There’s this fantastic scene of a flat filled with ghost animals, then a very uncomfortable revelation of the misery that underpins it, then the sighting of a legendary beast, andthenwe’realldoneandeverythingisfine. It just seems like finding a dire situation, and also finding that you have precisely the tool to instantly remediate it, causes me to have more disbelief than the ghost crocodile on the sofa. Still, a great story, and one of my favorites this week. QuoProQuid So, I kind of feel like this was a “gently caress it, it’s 10pm on Sunday, and I gotta write a TD entry.” But I enjoyed it. It was a total throw-away gag, but it was a good one. The revelation that this was QE2 hit just right, and Charles being a whining twit on the phone was perfect. Then you flubbed the punchline. The story should have ended on “Moo.” Yeah, the last paragraph sort of ties it up as a story, but this is really more of a bit. The last paragraph steps on the punchline and takes a lot of the wind out of it, and it’s a shame because it is legitimately very funny. The only way I see keeping the information in the last paragraph is to move it up in the story, so that the Queen charges and slays the beast with her sword, and it utters “Moo” as its dying word, leaving the story on that punchline and questioning the heroic nature of the killing act itself. siotle The pacing here is all off. The first 40% of the story is spent talking describing that it’s dark, it’s late, there’s no cell coverage, and the last bus has run. Then the most fantastical element of the story—the snipe—gets hardly a mention. Then we’re back to an embarrassing moment in the office, and we end with the story literally declaring that “nothing has substantially changed, but that’s ok.” Perhaps the larger issue is that the characters feel more like props than people. Jen doesn’t have any real agency in the story. She’s sort of on rails—the story’s going to cause her mortification, and there’s nothing she can do about it. The Senator exists only to be a point of fear for Jen. The snipe has no real reason to be in the story, at all. If you swap out the snipe for a peculiar mushroom, or a lost wallet, or anything else, the story ends the same way. If you delete the five very short paragraphs that describe the snipe encounter entirely, then the story still ends the same way. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I get the feeling this was a case of finding that you’ve burnt half of your words, and only told 10% of the story, and it’s an hour to deadline, so just land it. Antivehicular Overall, I very much like the story for the tone it strikes. The normalization of fantastical elements is always a trope that I like to see pulled off well, and you manage to do that handily. Also, kudos on making me physically recoil by talking about a “torn fitted sheet.” I didn’t know I telegraphed my phobias that hard. My criticism for this piece is that Ash exists largely as a subject, rather than as a person that is allowed agency. Really, the only decision Ash gets to make in the piece is, “Do I stay at home in bed, or do I go to the capsule hotel?” Otherwise, the story is largely acting upon Ash, rather than Ash acting upon the story. None of the two main characters here really feel like props, though—which is a credit to your prose. Honestly, I think that Dante is probably the most interesting character in the story because I can’t tell if he: a) Knows the leyline is taking a terrible toll on Ash, but is willfully allowing it in order to extract profit. (Use, and then discard Ash) b) Knows the leyline is taking a terrible toll on Ash, but is trying to take steps to mitigate the harm. (Use, and then recharge Ash) c) Has not suspected that the leyline is damaging, and is distraught to discover otherwise, and is trying to take steps to end the harm. (Protect, then heal Ash) So I think that leaves me with sort of a quandary about the story, because even though the prose is super tight, Ash’s lack of agency leaves me a little flat. And yet there’s another character that is presenting a lot of really interesting ideas (dangling success as an addictive substance, treating labor as livestock to be “cared for” instead of “cared about,” using HR and “best practices” as a shield for unethical practices, etc), but those ideas are sort of hiding off in the wings and never really get full light shined on them. (And yeah, it’s a 1200 word story, so good luck with that.) But all in all, I enjoyed reading it, and thanks for writing it.
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Dec 8, 2020 04:00
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In with week 77 - Well gee, that's certainly something
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Dec 8, 2020 23:04
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From Week 77, using this article from the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-Funk_mythology. I'm not going to bother reminding you what your hell rules were. Since you only bothered to read my most recent submission, I know you can read at least a few pages back in the thread at least. Funkademics 899 words I dunno where they dug these fossils up. I’ve been in this department for nearly ten years, and I’ve never seen either of these jokers before. Seriously, look at this guy on the left—the tweed jacket he’s wearing should be in a drawer in the collection room with a curation tag and an origin story. And the coot sitting next to him, I swear to God, I just saw part of his hair fall off. A whole patch of his hair just gave the gently caress up. “Well, let’s get this started, shall we?” said Department Chair Crivens, sitting in the middle of the group. “Is that briefcase necessary?” “I have supporting evidence, should it be necessary,” I assured her. She shrugged. “Doctor Overby, we’re happy to welcome you to your tenure committee. You’ve been a member of the department for nine years and contributed much to the Academy. You’ll recognize Professors Steele and DeLacy, to my right,” he motioned to the geezers. DeLacy’s fugitive hair was the most animated thing about the man. Steele had been on the verge of dozing off, but managed a yellow, toothy grin when his name was called. “Of course! Always a treat to fraternize with the giants of the field.” “I’m sure,” said Crivens, and she motioned to her left. You’ll also know our department manager, Mr. Macroon, who has kindly agreed to be the secretary for this committee. Finally, allow me to introduce Sister Inquisitor Huang. The Inquisition has taken an… understandably… special interest in your candidacy for tenureship. I am certain she will have questions as we proceed, but perhaps we can start with questions from Prof. DeLacy who has some inquiry into your publishing hist… ” “If I may, Professor Crivens,” Sister Inquisitor Huang broke in. Crivens rolled her eyes at the use of the ironic may. We all know there’re two flavors of inquisitor. There’s the sort that eats a lot of beef and onions, and makes a vocation out of flattening people’s noses. Then there’s Huang’s sort, with their accountant militant chic. “The Congregation for Doctrine finds Assistant Professor Overby’s field of research very problematic. Would Dr. Overby care to care to comment on his promotion of certain heretical dance ideologies, such as Funkentelechy?” Ugh. “Sister Inquisitor, I would begin by saying there is a difference between research and promotion. It is not my intent to revive a dead faith—if Funkentelechy can even be called that. Rather, it is my goal to contribute to the socio-historical map of the Middle-American Empire during the early Placebo era. The ideas I describe should not be taken literally, but rather as shared cultural metaphors that that help describe the worldview of the P-Funk cultists.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it. While Huang flipped through her notes, trying to make math out of my response, Crivens tried to get the committee back on track. “Doctor Overby, I believe that Professor DeLacy had a question about your publishing history. Prof. DeLacey?” “Hmm? Yes. Yes,” said DeLacey, coming back to our plane of existence from whatever fugue state he’d been in. Oh my poo poo, he actually picked up the patch of hair and put it in his breast pocket. “Doctor Overby, you haven’t published very much. Been hiding your findings from the journals, have you?” “I assure you, no, Professor DeLacey. I think it’s important to recognize that the P-Funk cultists were intertwined with a number of other techno-pagan sects and esoteric progress cults of the Middle-American Empire. Soul Train, NASA, Deee-Lite, and so forth. Adding to the difficulty is the schismatic nature the Parliament itself, with sub-cults devoted to the veneration of deities such as the messianic Star Child or the alien-god, Bootzilla. It’s evident that Funky Occultists, (sometimes referred to as ‘Foucault’ in certain apocryphal texts), were philosophically promiscuous. These pagans often borrowed conceptually from both their contemporaries as well as their predecessors. They exist not so much as mutually exclusive cosmologies, but rather as a tangle of interconnected funkadelics. So, to return to your question—I have not published slowly due to inactivity, but rather, due to an abundance of academic rigor.” I wasn’t sure if that was a satisfactory answer. I wasn’t sure if DeLacy was still breathing, either. But he didn’t have any follow up questions, so fine. S.I. Huang seemed to have gotten an idea, because she barged back into the conversation. “So you freely admit to publishing research about the false messiah Star Child, an obvious reference to Lucifer?” Haung shouted, waking up a snoring Professor Steele, “I demand an immediate adjournment of this hearing and the arrest of Doctor Overby on the charge of dancefloor heresy!” Not today, Sister. The briefcase had been perched beside the institutional-grade plastic chair, easy enough to flip open and reach a hand inside… “Is that a Bop Gun?” asked Professor Steele, peering over his bifocals. “It is! We found actual, physical evidence of the Mothership last month.” “Ha! Machina Ex Deus, then!” gently caress me. Wish I’d thought of that. “Good one, Prof.” “Wh-what is that?” stuttered Huang. “Well Sister, we can quibble about the metaphysics and minutiae of occult faiths all we want, but there’s no substitute to good, old fashioned pagan technology. The Bop Gun frees the mind, rear end to follow. And believe me, there is no way to fake the Funk.” Now dance, sucker.
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Dec 13, 2020 23:50
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sebmojo posted:Interprompt: it's christmas! But it's gone wrong! 250 words. Remember the Spirit of Christmas, and Keep it With You All Year Long 233 Words The ham roast has spoken: There will be no merriment this year. Clawing its way from the center oven rack, it sets its gaze upon us each in turn—peering into our beings with eyes of clove to find values of naughty and nice. Pineapple tainted breath soon carries words of our misdeeds, our shames. It squats, dripping beneath the Christmas Tree while muttering revelations that Father has been visiting harlots on his business trips, and that Mother has sought comfort in the arms of Reverend Pike. Sister’s sadism has crossed the threshold from maiming her dolls to spiking her sibling’s pudding with laxatives. Brother has made a vocation of onanism and casual blasphemy. Soon it paces the floor, frightening and enticing the dogs in equal measure, as it enumerates the things which we covet in a wretched, spittle choked voice. There will be no roller skates, no whale bone corset stays, no holiday cottage-upon-the-Tyne, no material succor from our dismal lives. Lurching onto the hearth, it climbs and picks its way up the mantle. One-by-one, it unpins and drops our stockings into the fire as the rising flames lick and melt the glaze covering its charred hide. After one final, eyeless, hateful stare, it scuttles into the flue, and climbs up and out of our home while making grim prophecies of our mediocre, unfulfilled existence. The fruitcake awakens, still dreaming.
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Dec 22, 2020 21:34
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I don't really care either way, but I can see how the threat of getting a losertar might dissuade people from joining in. Maybe they really like their av and don't want to risk getting it booted, and maybe they're afraid of getting ID'd as a filthy TD'er. Maybe we can have some sort of "No losertar for your first three subs, even if you lose" rule to let new folks feel a little more comfortable. Or maybe we can do a losertar as a gang-tag, so you keep your normal AV, but you get a shame ribbon below your name or something. I do think Yoruichi is on to something with saying that the losertar is as much of a badge of belonging as it is a badge of loss.
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Dec 23, 2020 02:28
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Entries are closed!
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Dec 28, 2020 12:01
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INTER As the year ends, we are faced by a cosmological crisis. The temples of Techne have crumbled, and we find ourselves once again clustered around fires by night. Looking up, we see that the sky is a dark canvas, dappled with thousands of twinkling stars. But, they're all new! If there were astronomers left, they'd be both beside themselves in grief, and giddy with the prospect of new discovery. But they're all gone now, so it's just us survivors, looking into the night sky. Instead of fear, we look up with hope. So many new stories to be told! Stories of things past, stories of things to come, and stories of why things are the way they are. It will be three nights until Sebmojo returns from meditation on the mountain. Let's look up at the new sky with its new constellations and tell each other stories about what we see. With luck, we can make some sense of the year that has past, and maybe even let some of the pain and shame slip behind us as we bravely look to the future. If you're itching to get rid of a 2020 losertar, then post a semi-decent flash story for this interprompt, and I'll huck a new avatar your way. Look at these constellations, swirling above the firmament! Pick one and tell a 400 word story about it. What's it called? What does it represent? How did it climb from the earth into the heavens? You don't have to answer all of these questions, but maybe they inspire a story. 
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Dec 28, 2020 17:55
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In, and flash me
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Dec 30, 2020 16:05
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Week 438 Crits Good cheer to all! (Save those who failed, because they shall forge another link of failure upon their chain of life to burden their soul in the afterlife.) This week was a pleasure to read, and I don't know of a single story that I disliked or found uninteresting. You guys are getting off your game, so I expect you all to put some extra suck on it this coming year. Anyone who is interested to get further in depth, just ask on discord, and I'll be happy to discuss. Brotherly I’m intrigued by the piece because it’s so rare that we see a protagonist that’s being seduced and succumbs to the system instead of struggling against it. The ideas of having weird War-on-Christmas extremists who have esoteric ornament bombs and child-to-elf conversion therapy is dark, but funny. I think my biggest criticism is that Mel ends up being cast as the “stereotypical nag” in this. For a person who apparently has a close connection with the main character, she needs to be a little more than a foil and a scold. Still, I liked this, it was imaginative and unique. Barnaby Profane gently caress if this story doesn’t have my number. There’s a few clunky sentences here and there, but this is my kind of cosmic horror holiday tale. It’s just downright creepy, and don’t like it because I love it. I’m really loathe to hand off a nearly back-to-back TD victory, but this is going to be the piece to beat this week. If anything can be improved it’s just tweaking the prose here or there for effect. A Friendly Penguin A sweet story with lots of action. The kinetics are strong here, but some of the internal monologue bits during the action come off as clunky. The resolution of what to do with Santa seemed a little weak and killed some of my suspension of disbelief. It felt sort of like you’d written yourself into a corner, and you took a quick and easy way out. It took a little wind out of the otherwise sweet and uplifting ending. flerp This one is just a gigantic ‘oof’ and that’s real good. The character and voice work is excellent. On top of that, it’s just a kick in the gut at the end, and it gives the story some serious weight for having a very silly premise. The prose is generally good, but it does falter here and there, especially when describing the dead body of Claus. It feels like you gets close to the grim reality, but always ends up being off the mark just enough to be uncanny. If you need help describing a dead person in the future, just ask. On the whole, one of my favorites this week, if not my favorite overall. Thranguy This one was a roll of the die, and it was neither a 1 nor a 20. The format let you try and tell an expansive story with some serious word economy, using the conceit of an advent calendar to open little windows into the larger story as it went on. But that was a double edged sword, because while there was sort of a “main story” there was also a LOT of loose end stuff that might have made sense to you, but ended up feeling really disjointed to me as a reader. That’s not to say that it wasn’t an interesting read, because it’s not often that I get to have a look at something that is mechanically distinct from nearly any other short story I’ve ever read. Flesnolk You avoided a fail, and that means you’re a winner! Well, probably you haven’t won this competition, but you did better than the jerks that signed up and then just shrugged and drank their eggnog instead of touching a computer to entertain their fellow goons. As far as specific crit goes, the story actually starts off with a promising premise—a device that blurs everything together. It just kind of falls apart after the first paragraph, as you well know. For further crit, you can contact me on discord, or take it up with the machine elves in hyperspace. Yoruichi It’s a Christmas miracle! Part 3! And it's even sort of a resolution at that. Overall it was proper silly end to the War on Christmas series that’s progressed over the past few weeks. If it had to stand on its own it would be pretty weird and incomprehensible, but taking it as the third in the trilogy meant that I could just put my feet up and giggle and feel “in” on the joke. In that context, I think the only thing that really hurt it was the occasional run-on sentence and some comma overuse. I hope this gets archived with the other two as a “classic.”
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Dec 31, 2020 02:33
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