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Hey everyone! Feel free to yell at me or delete this, but I'm going to spam my book in here since Thunderdome is the entire reason I managed to become a professional writer etc. etc. I have a LitRPG (it's mostly fantasy though) that I'm putting up on Royal Road. It's REALLY close to breaking onto the front page of the site and getting way more momentum. If you are at all interested or just want to help me out, give it a read and if you enjoy it, giving me some star ratings (not review, just clicking the star rating thing) will help push the book closer to the front page. This is my first non-romance thing that I've published that is doing well, and if it does well I can hopefully spend a lot less time writing romance and more time writing more fun stuff! Here is the link! It's free to read: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41003/bronze-sun-the-red-smith-litrpg-crafting 
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Mar 17, 2021 19:35
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:29 |
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Thanks for the review Sebmojo. I appreciate you saying my characters are realistically unsexy. You guys no no idea how little time I have these days (working full-time with a kid) but I will enter. Give me a random article.
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Mar 18, 2021 05:19
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https://scienceblog.com/521228/last-itch-effort-fighting-the-bacteria-that-exacerbate-eczema-with-bacteria/ Nervus Pascens 1498 Words. (edits were done before deadline and were me adding the bolds and italics that I forgot didn't paste over from Gdocs) “It still itches.” The doctor frowns at me over his clipboard. He told me his name, but I’ve forgotten it already. “Your eczema is gone. Well, not entirely gone, but the amount of bacteria is so negligible that—” “I’m telling you. It still itches.” He takes his stethoscope out and puts the cold metal onto my chest. I roll my eyes. It always feels like doctors have to prove they’re doctors by using a stethoscope. “Is my heartbeat going to tell you how my skin is doing?” “I’m trying to see if the parasites are in your heart already.” “What?” “It’s one of the side effects of this treatment. The itching is probably being caused by the parasites underneath your skin. They feed on the topical cream.” “But you prescribed me the cream.” “The possible side effects were listed on the bottle and in the literature I provided you.” I scratch my arm. I’ve never been able to feel where my nerves are, but ever since the eczema went away and I got these other itches, I’ve been feeling the itches like they are running all up and down my nerves. “Why does it still itch even after I scratch?” I ask. “You need to stop scratching. You’re irritating your skin.” My skin is bleeding, and all my nails are bloody. It never stops itching. “Why doesn’t scratching help?” “It’s nerve itching. The parasites are burrowed in deep, and they’re chewing on your nerves.” “So you gave me this poo poo knowing this would happen?” “Not everyone is a suitable host for the parasites. Did you cut back on salt like I asked you to?” I narrow my eyes at him. “I thought you were just giving me a standard spiel about hypertension.” He shakes his head. “No, no. You have to cut your sodium back drastically, otherwise you attract the parasites.” “So are they in my heart?” He pulls the stethoscope off. “They are. You’ll need to lower your sodium intake drastically. You can only have enough salt to avoid hyponatremia.” “And that will get rid of the parasites?” He shakes his head, but doesn’t make eye contact with me. He’s looking at his clipboard again. “You can’t get rid of them once they’re in your heart. Just keep your sodium down? Okay?” “Aren’t you going to give me something? I’m just stuck with these things forever?” “If you watch what you eat, your quality of life shouldn’t be reduced too much. Also, make sure you never go swimming in salt water. That would be lethal at this point.” I try to get more answers out of him, but he tells me he has another patient and kicks me out. I see a woman scratching her forearm as I walk outside. Seeing her scratching makes me do it too, and I look her right in the eyes as I walk by. “Don’t let him give you the cream.” She looks down at my arm, which is covered in blood now, and her eyes widen. “Parasites,” I say. “They’re in my heart now. I just gotta watch the sodium.” When I get home, I find some forums for people with my condition. The parasites are called nervus fututorum, and a lot of people online seem to have them too. The most upvoted thread is a tutorial video on how to reduce the nerve itching. I open the thread and read the text before the video. Do not. I repeat DO NOT try sub-dermal scratching. It doesn’t matter how much you reduce your sodium, the parasites will keep you biting your nerves, and it will keep itching. A lot of people have found that if you jam a needle or a knife into your skin and move it around, it sometimes can offer relief. This relief is short-lived, because you will get infections and abscesses, and sometimes you can even lose your arm. Or worse. I check open the video, excited to see the trick to relieve the scratching. The video shows a guy in his mid-30s. He has bloody scratches like I do on my arm, but he’s also got scratches all over his face, neck, and every exposed piece of skin I can see. “So this method is called ‘chasing the dragon,’ you’re going to need a sheet of tinfoil, a tube—you can just use a rolled up magazine in a pinch—a lighter, and some heroin. You’re going to want to hold the flame beneath…” The video goes on to show the guy smoking heroin through a rolled up sheet of paper as it melts off the foil. He explains that opiates are one of the only drugs that can offer relief directly to the nerves. The guy in the video starts nodding off as he puts the foil down. His eyelids are drooping, but he talks through it with a drowsy voice. “The doctors won’t give you any opiates in pill form for this. You want to smoke the H instead of shooting it. I guess you could snort it too, but the main thing is you’re using it for relief, not for the high. Also, once you get a needle under your skin, the urge to just scrape it around in there is going to be too hard to resist.” He holds up his arm, pulls back the sleeve, and there’s what looks like a big and rotting open wound all over his forearm. “Trust me.” I give the thread an upvote and close the browser window. “poo poo,” I whisper to myself. It takes me almost a week to give in, then another two days to figure out how to actually buy some heroin. By the time I walk up to the guy I’m trying to buy from, my entire arm is just one big wound. “How do I know you’re not a cop?” I pull my sleeve up. “poo poo,” he says, stepping back from me. “Shoot it into your other arm, man!” I grin sheepishly and hand him the money, and he puts a little baggy into my hand. I go home and try to chase the dragon. I gently caress it up and just burn half of the heroin. I can’t catch the smoke. Or maybe I don’t inhale right. Either way, it doesn’t work. I look up how to snort it, and then I snort it. It’s much easier, but it feels a lot grosser than smoking. The heroin starts to kick in. It feels really good, but my arm is still itchy. It still itches. It still loving itches. Fighting the urge to nod off, I go onto the forum and make a new thread: IT STILL ITCHES! Responses start pouring in for the first few minutes, but they stop as my thread gets downvoted to hell. “Didn’t you read the FAQ?” “Try using the search function next time.” “Mod here! Don’t make a thread if you didn’t read the sidebar first. I’m locking this thread.” I scramble to the sidebar. Then the FAQ. Q: What is the difference between nervus fututorum and nervus pascens? A: While both types of parasites are similar and feed on salt, they are brought about by two different types of eczema creams— I grab the loving cream the doctor gave me and check the label, cross-checking it with the FAQ. I have nervus pascens. —nervus pascens should never be treated with opiates, as it will— I don’t even have time to finish reading. The nerve itching starts spreading up my body. It goes through my shoulder, then all up my neck. I never realized how many nerves are in my face, but when they’re all itching and completely unscratchable—yeah, gently caress, there’s a lot of nerves in there. The worst itching is happening behind my eyes. I slide a finger up where my tear duct is, and I push it into my eye socket. It’s wet, and it hurts as it slides around the inside of my eye, but I manage to curve it around. I touch what I’m pretty sure is the optic nerve, and then I get my nail right on it and scratch. gently caress, it hurts, but the itching goes away. I scratch more. The heroin is numbing the pain for the most part. When I finally get my finger out of there, I can’t see out of that eye anymore. The other eye starts to itch, and I decide to read the FAQ a bit more before I lose that eye too. I don’t make it. It feels too good to scratch. I scratch myself blind. I snort more heroin when the pain gets too bad. I get a knife and start cutting up my face. I get the knife under my arm—where it still itches most now—and I move it around. It hurts bad, and I think I cut an artery. I start bleeding out. When I get lightheaded and fall over I realize I’m going to die, but it doesn’t itch anymore. angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Mar 22, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 05:27
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 Thunderdome Week 451: Borges Week This is a quote from Borges: quote:“The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary.”' If you want some really concrete examples of what I have in mind, go read some of his stuff in "Ficciones" where it feels kind of like a "story about another story" and it feels like the longer story or work being written about actually exists because you make it important or relevant in your short story, but in reality, it doesn't exist. You can do stuff like make up an author of the story and talk about them too. Do whatever you want to do to make it feel more real while also making your actual story compelling and effective. I will allow erotica or sex scenes as a nod to my career, but don't just do it to do it! Here is a PDF with some of his stuff. A few of these do the thing I'm talking about : https://libraryofbabel.info/borges/thegardenofbranchingpaths.pdf EDIT: I'm hearing some people say they still don't understand the prompt or know what to do. The story doesn't have to be a "report" or a "commentary" or an "essay." You can do that and it will be cool if you do it well. It could also be a narrative that features a fake book or fake story, but I'd want to see your narrative do something kind of interesting with that fake book or fake story. I should have some kind of idea of the significance of that book or story through your narrative. I am happy to clarify more if anyone still is confused. I'm not going to attack you for not doing the prompt the way I want it. Maximum word limit: 1000 Entry deadline: Friday, March 26 at 11:59:59PM PST Submission deadline: Sunday, March 2 at 11:59:59PM PST No: Fanfic Judges angel opportunity crabrock Entrants (software I use messed with capitalization sorry): Sebmojo Thranguy Noah Brotherly Flerp Crimea Sparksbloom TOXX Toanoradian Antivehicular Baneling butts angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Mar 27, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 20:41
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I've edited the post for the prompt a bit due to some confusion.
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Mar 24, 2021 04:59
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It does not need to be in Borges style
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Mar 25, 2021 20:19
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Two hours left to enter
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Mar 27, 2021 05:54
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Submissions Closed. Sebmojo fails to enter.
angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Mar 29, 2021 |
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Mar 29, 2021 07:05
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TD Results Post Winner: Antivehicular Loser: Crimea Crits will follow in the next few days. Honorable Mentions to: Noah and Sparksbloom for having me ranked higher until Crabrock pointed out some critiques which I ended up agreeing with a lot and ended up ranking you lower! I thought you both had very cool ideas, but the execution of them made them less interesting "stories." They ended up just kind of reading like this one idea with a thin story around it rather than a story, and Antivehicular's read more like a story. angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Mar 29, 2021 |
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Mar 29, 2021 08:24
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Did the crits in video form. I'm working on adding timestamps right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVb77e8Tbvo 2:29 Brotherly 5:11 Crimea 8:52 Noah 10:00 toanoradian 12:40 thranguy 14:40 sparksbloom 16:33 flerp 19:40 Antivehicular 22:00 Baneling Butts angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Mar 29, 2021 |
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Mar 29, 2021 20:35
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Apr 7, 2021 03:17
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