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Hey I'd like to claim Hot Nixon Cottage Cheese Pics
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2025 20:02 |
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Crits Uranium Phoenix I enjoyed the descriptive prose in this story. You’re in a tough spot, as that’s one of the few things you can lean on in a story without any dialogue, but I think you handled it well. I think that your story suffers a little bit from the ‘too many questions’ problem. It feels like a whole lot of your descriptions, your setting, your character’s motivations, they’re all questions that are left unanswered. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing (and sometimes makes for a good flash fiction piece) but in this case it didn’t hit well for me. Idle Amalgam I’m really not sure about your framing device. It’s an internet post, but it doesn’t read like one. It reads like a short story, which is kinda the point, but you see what I’m saying? I’ve read plenty of people grousing about their disastrous lives on reddit, but people don’t really describe their lives in this style? If you’re going to opt for a known framing device, I’d try to stick with its style. Examples: “He would twist fate in his favor no matter the cost.” “ His urethra was too narrow like a certain cartoon Texan’s, and I just stopped producing eggs one day.” “It thrummed with a sickly energy, and I began to grow weary of it.” Despite the framing device, and the sudden jerks forward in time that it provides, not a lot happens in the story. There’s not much emotional upheaval and I’m left not really knowing about the relationship between your protag and her husband, which is where the meat of this story should be. However, I think that would mean you’d have to discard your framing device, which I think would have done you some good (although I get that you were constrained by your story having to take place on the internet). I don’t get the ending and I didn’t care for it. It’s not fleshed out enough and I don’t care enough about your protagonist for it to matter. In short: you wrote about something happening to a person, but didn’t write enough about the person to make me care. Chernobyl Princess I appreciate that you took a solid crack at writing dialogue. There’s not enough of it in Thunderdome, or at least not enough good dialogue, so there’s some merit there. The voices of your characters (besides the imp, I suppose), were a little inconsistent. The elf saying “ain’t”, the kid talking about “job creators”, it didn’t fit so well. At your conclusion, I’m not sure what the gift was? Was it an early plane ticket? If that was your twist, I don’t quite understand that either. I’m being a little quibbling, but that felt like more of a resolution than a twist; it didn’t surprise me. The last line about anger management is superfluous. I thought that the first third of the story could have been heavily edited too, I don’t think it added much to your narrative. Flerp Ok, full disclosure: my eyes glazed over a few times while reading this. Why is your character that specific kind of AI? Why did you tease a more interesting world, then write about something completely different? It’s so much description, I don’t know where any of it is going, and a lot of it feels completely superfluous. I wrote a CYOA a few weeks ago and I know how tough it is to make each ending mean something, or even to have each ending contribute to the tone and thesis of your narrative, but a gimmick for the sake of a gimmick is no good. I actually just got done reading the Murderbot series, which has an excellent robot/AI voice. The difference is that the AI voice is interwoven with important story beats actually happening, which propels the voice forward. Didn’t catch those story beats here. It’s very possible that there’s some larger, overarching story that I’m missing. My Shark Waifuu It’s a personal preference, but I am really not a fan of the style of worldbuilding you did in your first paragraph. It’s stage-setting, or scene-setting, but none of the details you included felt like things that were impossible to weave into the story. As a result, it’s not compelling even though it feels like you came up with a fresh, clever setting. I appreciate that you went for a dialogue-heavy story. It’s difficult to pull off and I thought most of it sounded realistic, although I would have preferred your characters being a little more distinct. The attempts at humor did not get me. Rohan What’s the deal with the second section? It comes out of nowhere, is more of the tell-y style of worldbuilding, and crushes the momentum you had going. The bit with the chess is clever, I like the solution. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. And then BAM! Out of it again. More prose, more description, more lost momentum. The thread of your protag finding his identity is good, but it really feels like that’s what the story should have been about. The framing device is almost too big for the ‘reveal’. And you ended on another one of those segments! The man called M You’re getting better, for sure. There’s a little too much telling and not enough showing in this story. I think a lot of your past crits have focused on that so I won’t belabor the point, but it’d do your writing some good if you tried to show the audience why things are important, and not just tell them. Don’t put yelled things in all caps. Write the story to indicate that they’re being spoken that way. It’s a boilerplate cop drug bust story in a standard sort of voice. Not much to expound upon there. Sailor Viy Okay, the intro line hits what I think is a great balance of telling me about the world without being too wordy about it. Nice. Your pacing is quite good. I think you ride a little too far toward description for my taste, but I think it’s well-done regardless. The ending was sweet and satisfying. My biggest critique here is that you’ve chosen subject matter that would be suited toward a longer piece. This is a compliment, too, as I want to hear more about this world. Yoruichi You’re obviously a skilled writer, I’ll get that out of the way. Your descriptions are good, the setting is suitably eerie, the pacing of the story is solid. Then- Nothing? The conclusion feels limp and unfinished, I’m not sure what any of it actually means, and, maybe most unsatisfyingly, all those breadcrumbs you dropped along the way didn’t seem to mean much of anything at all. Maybe I’m just not picking up what you’re putting down, or maybe your writing is a little too oblique for me. Either way, you lost me at the conclusion. Crabrock I like the concept and, per usual, your craft is excellent. Good mechanics and fairly good pacing throughout. Sometimes you trip over yourself when trying to be clever, to the disservice of the story at large. It’s a tough thing to criticize: when it hits, the streak of cleverness works quite well and adds charm to the story, but when it misses, your writing comes off smug. I think in this particular story, it was more of a miss than a hit for me. I think this story falls into the problem of nothing really happening while a lot of things are happening. It’s a slice of life story, but it feels like it could have been so much more. Thranguy A nice, melancholic story. I struggled a bit at the beginning, with segments like: “He gave me the big cryptic advice, the things that all made perfect sense later. Not to join the military. Not to move to New York, or New Orleans. "I didn't," he said, "Any of that. But you won't quite be me." I get what you’re trying to say, but it’s a little clumsy. It seems to me like you’re going for a cryptic voice, or a haze of mystery running over the whole piece, but sometimes it’s a little overbearing. I could use the story being more rooted, and the latter half does that pretty well. Still, it’s a well-done story and a lovely concept done in a manner that feels fresh. Surreptitiousmuffin Solid setting, great descriptive language, very creepy vibe you’ve run through the story. Good mechanics, too. My major critique is that there’s not much new here. The motivations are all pretty standard, the monster turn is well-done but a little predictable. I don’t mean to say that you always have to innovate, but I think it’d do you some good here. Sebmojo I like what you’re doing here, but I’m a sucker for stories about mysterious locked rooms. My problem is that it takes such a long while to get there. The first half of the story doesn’t do much for me. It’s a little too much world-building for a piece this long, although many of the details are tantalizing and hint at a world I want to read more about. Unfortunately, they get a little buried amongst everything else. I also found the writing sloppy in portions, with some sentences being difficult to parse out. Not a major crit, but I generally like your stories a lot and don’t often see that issue in your work.
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The Nixon Cheese 1622 words Broussard’s Famous Cheese Museum just didn’t rake in visitors like it used to. Hamilton Broussard opened a desk drawer and removed a small wedge wrapped in brown paper. He turned the wedge over in his hand. It was hermetically-wrapped Comté Brionais, the real stuff: aged forty years in the belly of an Alpine French monastery, blessed no less than once a week, and carrying a stench that could clear a city block. But it was even more than that: It was Hamilton’s thinking cheese. He couldn’t understand how the exhibits had failed to draw the crowds they so richly deserved, though he conceded that he’d been viewing them through rosy tinted glasses. Perhaps he could rotate out the collection of camembert labels, whimsical though they were. He began to review the exhibits again, gently palming the Comté, when a sharp knock at the door caught his attention. He hastily placed the cheese back in the drawer. “Yes? Miss Hurdell, is that you?” The visitor knocked again. “Come in!” A short, slouchy man strolled into the office. He was wearing a bulky brown overcoat; totally unsuitable for the balmy weather. Hamilton’s voice was hesitant. “May I help you? We’re closed for tours, but if you’ll come back-” The man cut him off. “No, not a tour. You’re Hamilton Broussard, the curator? I’m Reeves. I have some material that may interest you. It could be an exhibit, a goddamn great one.” Hamilton raised his eyebrows and offered the man a chair. “I don’t recall making any appointments. Did you check in with Miss Hurdell? She-” Reeves smiled and interrupted him again. “Oh, Miss Hurdell was quite taken by my offer. She told me to come straight to your office.” Hamilton didn’t care for Reeves’ smile. There was something aggressive about it, something curdled and mocking, something that told him that he ought to check on Miss Hurdell. But the promise of a new exhibit drew him in. “Well, Mr. Reeves, it’s a little abrupt. But please, show me what you have.” Reeves withdrew an envelope from his coat. “You’re familiar with former President Nixon’s luncheon of choice? Cottage cheese, drizzled with ketchup?” Hamilton nodded, utterly hooked by the classic cheese-lore. His mind swam with the possibilities; perhaps Reeves’ prize could even lead to a collaboration with the Catsup Society. “Of course, Mr. Reeves. Do you have some associated memorabilia? The museum would be quite interested in its acquisition!” Reeves gave him that smile again, and withdrew a single photograph from the envelope. He placed it on the table. Hamilton leaned in, then shrank back in revulsion. From the print, Nixon shot him an inviting leer. The former president lounged naked on a velvet chaise, with cottage cheese smeared across his chest and trailing to a heap over his groin. Hamilton sputtered a response. “Is this some kind of joke? The cheese…the indignity! And for you to bring this…pornography, it’s simply…get out! Out!” Reeves took his time getting to his feet. He seemed almost viciously placid as he gestured to the walls, at the peeling cheddar-wheel wallpaper and the cracked baseboards. “The museum business isn’t doing so well, is it? Maybe it’s aged just a little too long.” Hamilton came within an inch of laying his hands on Reeves, but stayed himself. His tone was conclusive, his conviction indisputable. “I know men of your kind, Mr. Reeves. You have no respect for the cheese.” Reeves shrugged, picked up the photograph, and walked out of the office. Hamilton grimaced; not just at Reeves, but with the sinking feeling that the presidential smut-peddler may have been right. Three uneasy months passed. Museum admissions hadn’t recovered; in fact, entries had never been worse. He’d even had to let faithful Ms. Hurdell go, only able to offer her a severance of aged blue and some superior emmentaler; she’d accepted it graciously. And then, last week, burglars had broken the back lock. They’d had a good look around, knocked some items off the shelves, and apparently left without taking anything at all. And then there was Reeves. He was clearly growing more desperate to cut a deal: there were phone calls from unlisted numbers, letters without return postmarks, and scribbled notes slipped under the front door. Hamilton frowned as he finished dusting the parmesan wheels, then headed back to his office. He pushed open the door, then cried out in terror. Reeves laid across his desk in an infuriating mimicry of Nixon’s carnal mien, though with his overcoat blessedly intact. The filthy man winked at Hamilton. “Oh hey, Hammy! Real sorry about busting in. But you know, it’s better to ask forgiveness than parmesan.” Hamilton briefly raised his eyebrows, then darted across the office and tried to lay a hand on his desk phone. Reeves anticipated the move and twisted to clamp a grubby hand across the receiver. “Aw, no. Whatever happened to hospitality?” Reeves ripped the handset away from the receiver. He rolled off the desk and landed himself neatly on a desk chair. He was fast, Hamilton thought. He glanced back to the door, wondering if he could close the distance before his malevolent solicitor could stop him. In the moment it had taken him to make the assessment, Reeves had leapt from the chair to plant himself firmly in the doorway, with an arm on each side of the threshold. He glowered at Hamilton. “Now, be reasonable. Take a seat.” Hamilton gulped; it was more a command than an invitation. He eased into his desk chair as Reeves continued. “It took a lot of doing to get this photo, you know that? And even more doing to get out here, to bring it to the one person I thought would be in a spot to appreciate it. And what do you do? You spit in my face. You treat me like a bum and throw me out.” He glared at Hamilton, any pretense of affability dropping away entirely. “I’m broke, Hammy. Ruined. And it’s all your fault.” Hamilton didn’t need any confirmation, but there it was anyway: the man was completely unhinged. Reeves’ expression shifted into a sour grin. “But I’m a forgiving kind of guy. See, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. So whaddya say, do we have a deal?” Hamilton furrowed his brow, then relaxed and shrugged. “What do I say about what? You have your undoubtedly priceless photograph, but as you were so, ah, astute to point out, my museum is failing. I have nothing of value to offer you.” Reeves moved from the doorway and wagged his finger. “See, Hammy, I already thought about that. So I’ve got a little proposal for you. I give you the photo and…” Hamilton gulped; he had a foul feeling about what was coming next. Reeves smiled wider. “We become partners. Fifty-fifty in the cheese museum business, all equitable-like.” Reeves spread his arms wide, as if beholding a marquee. “I’ve got plans, Hammy. We get rid of some of the dusty old junk, throw the camembert labels in the incinerator. Then we get some crowd-pleasers in here. I’ve got a line on some great action, Dwight Eisenhower and a wheel of Wisconsin white. It’ll make your curd jump outta your whey, if you know what I mean.” Hamilton was aghast. Reeves chuckled, then reached into his enormous coat and withdrew a large manila envelope. “Look, I’ve already got the papers drawn up. That’s just the kind of responsible guy I am. And I’ll even give you another look at the photo, just to see if you’ve changed your mind.” Reeves laid the papers on the table, then set the photograph on top of them. He wiped his finger on his coat, then traced a lazy circle around Nixon’s cheese-slathered physique. Reeves leaned in close, his voice dropping to a growl. “And I’m not leaving until you make it worth my while.” Hamilton was in a tumult. He could stall for time, but time to do what? He wished he was holding the Comté, his thinking cheese. It would have helped him figure out what to do. Yes, the cheese. There was always the cheese. Hamilton flashed a weak smile and put up his hands. “Well, Mr. Reeves, I do believe that you have me beat. But to seal the partnership in traditional fromager fashion…” Hamilton reached into his desk drawer and withdrew the wedge of Comté. “...we must split a cheese.” Before Reeves could react, Hamilton grabbed a corner of the brown paper and pulled. The stench was immediate, a casein assault on the senses. Hamilton caught notes of mildew, of subterranean mushrooms, of vegetative rot, and of the ancient dirt between monastery flagstones. The raucous aroma brought a tear to his eye. Reeves vomited. Hamilton seized his chance. He snatched up the photo and bolted from behind the desk, shimmying around the infirm Reeves before throwing himself out the office door. He ran and didn’t stop until he was out of the museum and down the block. He looked over his shoulder, then caught his breath; Reeves was nowhere to be seen. Hamilton regarded the Comté and took a delicate nibble from one corner, letting the melange of flavors dance on his tongue. He glanced at the photo and frowned, briefly regarding the salvation it could bring to Broussard’s Famous Cheese Museum. Hamilton grabbed the corner of the photograph and tore it in half, then in half again, and again, and again, until all identification of Nixon’s curdled shame had been obliterated. He scattered the pile of rancid confetti, letting the wind carry it into the street. The museum might fail, he thought, but that was fine: the dignity of the cheese had been preserved.
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Apologies, my prompt is 'Hot Nixon Cottage Cheese Pics'
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In Unnatural cruelty
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Desire 764 words Prompt: S147.1.1. Abandonment on cliff near nest of a bird. I stood on a crag in a haze of variegated snow. I looked over my shoulder. I saw a door, almost thrumming with heat through the blur of frost. No, not frost: drifting flakes of tealeaf and silk, mingled with a razored hail of amber and quartz, all dropping in jerks and fits to the twisting stone of the cliffs. I turned away, barely considering the door. From my low ground, I could barely make out the nest. I wondered how the egg within it could survive the storm, but my concern was idle, negligible: The egg was there; I knew it. And, with a mechanism as intrinsic and automatic as breathing, I knew that I had to possess it, no matter the cost. I walked forward, gripped the rock, and hauled myself up. The wind blew harder, and I closed my eyes against the jeweled gale. When I opened them the bluffs had grown dimmer, the starlight halved. There, another certainty blossomed in my mind: with each blink, each visual retreat from the world I beheld, the sky would undertake a celestial excision, and again, and again, until a terminal blink brought the departure of all light, all creation, and the egg dead along with it. I knew this now, but it all came so easily; had I known it before? I found a steady rhythm, climbing higher. The alloyed sleet fell hard, lacerating my pupils and carving miniscule contrails of pitch into my vision. I tried to resist the pain, tried to wrench my eyes open against the barrage. In torturous, blinding agony, I failed. I closed my eyes and pulled myself upward, my fingers playing over aches and pits and nodes, until I found a hold. I reached up again, but my hands grasped air; I stumbled, and beheld the glimmering abyss far below the darkened cliffs. It looked sick, pulsing and beating with the rhythm of a failing heart. As my foot skidded over the edge; I subsumed another absolute truth: I could fall, but the fall would not be infinite, and at the bottom lay oblivion, solitary and piteous. And then, one last thunderbolt: I had fallen before, once, or a thousand times. I heaved over a ledge and came to a long, narrow mesa flanked with a panoply of doors: one falciform and dripping with amber honey, one moaning a mouthless song, another a ragged hollow in the great dead sky. I defied them all and a hundred more, striding forward with my eyes wide open. I was close, so close. And there, over a final sedimentary shelf: the nest. I stepped toward it and caught a flash of twilight, something winged and diaphanous and ignorant to any ceaseless current of time. It claimed the clifftop, putting an infinite span between my outstretched hands and the egg. Its command sept through the sutures of my skull: “Deliver your wisdom.” I pursed my lips and considered the vanishing suns, the slow death in a closed eye. “I must consider what lies ahead, though creation is painful to behold.” The great thing quavered. “Continue.” Next, the lesson of the fall. “The void is no departure, and nothingness is no manner of mercy.” A segmented eye emerged from its roiling bulk. The orb turned in a contorted socket, each mirrored facet scrutinizing me for a moment, then whirling away as another plane presented itself. Its voice, again: “Acceptable.” Then, the hall of passages. “There is no victory in an exit, no curiosity greater than the possession of what I desire.” It huffed and a burst of viridian embers mingled with the falling snow. The voice came slower now, almost remorseful. “Yet again, so close. And if I tell you that the item of your greatest avarice is a toxin, venom for the soul and rot for the spirit, what then?” I gritted my teeth; the egg was so close at hand. “I must have it.” The mammoth creature shuddered, sucking itself away from the clifftop and trailing pools of mirrored glass. Its voice, in resignation, a final time: “So it has been.” In a roil of smoke and light, it burst from the cliff. I did not pause to watch its departure; I ran to the aerie. I clutched at its writhing boughs, ignorant of any lesson, of any deliverance, of anything but my all-consuming yearning. Then, at last, I gazed inside the nest. But there was no egg, no object of my most ravenous desire. Instead I saw a man, standing on a crag in a haze of variegated snow.
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In, dealer's choice
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2025 20:02 |
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Coop Dynamics 881 words It was a beautiful sunrise, but Brian was not happy at all. This morning was a mystery; all of his chickens have disappeared and his rooster was not alive; he did not sing this morning as he used to. “Feathany? Beaeggtrice? Poultricia!,” he shouted. Only silence from the darkness within the coop. As Brian’s eyes acclimated, objects came into view: a miniature robe and tiara from last week’s Fancy Friday, a framed watercolor of Feathany in a crimson pantsuit, and a laptop with his collection of pretty tasteless action movies. But no chickens. Then he spied a twisted bundle on the floor at the far end of the coop. He approached it cautiously and knelt to examine it. It was McClaine. Dead, of course. But not just dead, no: the rooster had been annihilated. His feathers were scattered, some of their shafts still bearing gibbets of meat where they’d been yanked free from the flesh. Brian nudged the body with his boot then backpedaled in shock. McClaine’s beak had been ripped from his head, leaving an oozing void between his beady eyes. This wasn’t a coyote or a stray dog from a neighboring farm, Brian thought, as a grotesque notion floated into his mind: This was an execution. Brian walked out of the coop, his heart in his throat. He’d wasted so much time on conflict resolution, on equitable arbitration and organizational de-siloing, just like the internet message boards had suggested, all in an effort to mollify a real shitbird of a rooster. He thought back to Fancy Friday with all his hens, with McClaine sulking alone in the corner and refusing to wear a jaunty tricorn hat. He was about to head back to the house when he noticed something peculiar in the dirt around the henhouse: a wide scuff, running from the coop to the woods that abutted the farm: chickens covering their tracks, and doing a truly awful job. He followed the scuff to the edge of his property, took a deep breath, then plunged into the dense wood. He stumbled over logs and leapt over patches of ivy, upturning rocks and shaking shrubs in an increasingly desperate effort to find his hens. Then, from somewhere off in the distance, he heard a cluck. It was almost inaudible in the cryptic tangle of the wood, but to Brian it was unmistakable: Feathany. He drove deeper, shoving furiously through the trees until he burst upon a small clearing. He saw an ancient shed, its walls leaning precariously after years of frost and thaw. Brian heard a particular squawk, starting low and ending in a high trill. His chickens were inside. Brian closed the distance to the shed with a series of lightning steps and threw open the door, casting light onto the chicken tribunal. Feathany stood proud in a circle of nests with one wing raised and a foot frozen in half-march. A squawk died in her blood-smeared beak as the rest of the chicken coup whirled to face Brian. He put his hands up. “Uh, ladies? What the heck happened back there?” The chickens looked nonchalantly around the shed, as if the answer were under an upturned bucket, or behind a deteriorating wall panel. Feathany hastily covered her sanguine beak. Brian frowned. “Look, I know that the chicken-rooster negotiations had kinda come to an impasse, but we coulda all sat down, hashed it out. Made a few concessions, you know?” The chickens all seemed to ruffle their feathers at once; the differences had been irreconcilable. Brian shook his head. “I mean, at least come and tell me? We’ve always been so close, I don’t get why you just wouldn’t…” As he looked out over his flock, their rationale slowly dawned on him: the chickens hadn’t been running from their crime, or even striking out on their own. The truth was simple, and it was Brian’s fault. “Oh my god. You thought I’d take his side. That’s it, isn’t it?” The chickens looked at the ground, scratching and pecking in feigned indifference. Brian swallowed hard. “Look, I don’t know why I kept trying to keep things even. McClaine was the worst. And his attitude! Like, I didn’t even know a rooster could be so…” He waved his hand, searching for the word. Feathany clucked. “Yeah, smug! Look, I don’t want to be flippant or anything. What you gals did was seriously horrible.” The chickens seemed unconcerned with decorum. “Well come on, let’s go back home. It’s getting late, we can talk about it tomorrow. Hey, I even got Bloodsoaker Four on blu-ray. It’s the director’s cut.” Feathany cooed, then put a wing in the air and drew a lazy circle. The chickens slowly filed out of the shed, hooting and flapping. Brian smiled; she’d always been leadership material. His favorite hen waddled toward him, then stopped to rustle under a pile of debris. She popped out a moment later, dangling something from her pinion. He looked down at his chicken’s offering. It was McClaine’s beak, all wound around a garland of bloodsoaked grasses. “Good god, girl. No. Absolutely not. That’s the line.” Feathany squawked, then tossed the beak onto the floor. Brian scooped her up, gently stroking her head as she nuzzled him. Maybe he’d sleep through sunrise tomorrow.
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