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derp posted:i'm in with this one 800w The snow was melting, I heard it dripping off the roof and trickling down the gutters, and outside the snowman that the children built was tilting and slumping toward the patchy pavement. Christmas was over. Everyone was gone back to their homes and my house was empty and silent, a silence that was magnified after the presence of so many people and so much cheer. There were still bits of wrapping paper scattered around the house and scattered candy and bits of crackers. I didn’t feel like cleaning it up and removing the evidence that, for one day, I had been the center of something. I watched out my window as half of the snowman’s head slid off, and his little top hat fell to the ground. He was turning to slush in the gray noon light. Something turned round in my heart just then, and I could not stand the melting, the shrinking of life into the past, the ending. I could not take the ending, which, this year I knew was a more permanent end than all those before. I put on my shoes and went out into the yard and through the crunchy wet grass to the sidewalk where the children had built him. I bent and picked up the snowman's hat from the ground where it looked so forlorn and out of place. I set it on my head. When that old felt hat touched my skin I felt the Christmas Spirit surge through my veins “Ho ho ho!” I shouted at the winter sky. The little glimmer of joy that remained from yesterday flared up into a jolly conflagration. “Ho ho ho! HO HO HO!” my voice echoed up the empty neighborhood streets with their dimmed decorations and dark windows. Where was everyone's spirit? Where was all the love? “HO HO HO IT’S CHRISTMASTIME!” I shouted, and still there was only silence and gray streets, and a little bit of anger tightened my heart. Who are these grinches to kill the joy I’ve just managed to hold onto? I asked myself. Why aren’t they singing in the streets? Why aren’t their lights on? I strode across the street to my nearest neighbor Dr Torpedo’s house, and pounded on the door. The wreath hanging there rattled cheerfully. “Ho ho ho, Dr T! Santa’s on his way!” I called as I pounded. Dr T opened the door with blurry eyes. “Tim, uh hi, Christmas was yesterday, you know?” He peered over my shoulder at my house across the street. “Everything okay over there, buddy? I know you’ve been having a hard time since-” “HO HO HO IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME!!” I shouted at his grinchy face and pulled him out into the street by his arm. “GET THESE LIGHTS ON!” Then I went on to the next houses, one by one, singing out my Christmas carol and bringing the neighborhood out into the streets. First I had to drag them, but soon everyone saw the joyous event out their windows and ran out into the street on their own. They all gathered into a crowd in the middle of the cul de sac, looking at me. “Everyone, sing!” I said, and threw my hands up like a conductor, but they were not being very enthusiastic, mostly they were looking at their phones. I slapped a couple cheeks to get them to turn that rosy holiday red. “Come on, sing! It’s only once a year! Where’s your spirit!” But all they did was mumble and grumble about how ‘it was yesterday’ and ‘it’s cold out here’ and ‘you’re acting crazy’ and ‘take off that stupid hat, Tim’ but my spirit was roaring with sleighbells and my blood was pure peppermint, I pushed and pulled and wrangled them into a line and faced them as their leader, and began to sing: Christmas time is almost here, and soon we'll hear that joyful cheer, When Santa comes, upon his sleigh, and sings this song on christmas day. Ho ho ho, it's christmas time. Ho ho ho, it's christmas time. Ho ho ho, it's christmas time. Ho ho ho, it's christmas time. Ho ho ho, it's christmas time. Ho ho ho, it's christmas time. Ho ho ho, it's christmas time. Santa's on his waaaay On the final note of my song a voice from afar joined in, a siren on the wind, surely an angel or a celestial reindeer answering noel’s call. And then I saw, at the end of our humble street, the glimmering lights of Christmas! Red and white, and even blue, they sparkled and glimmered in the air along with their ghostly angelic singing. “Christmas is here! It’s here to stay!” I shouted and danced and tipped my new hat to each of my neighbors on this glorious day, offering each of them a Christmas wish, before Santa and his blue-shirt elves took me away in their magical sleigh.
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Dec 25, 2022 09:27
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Idle Amalgam posted:More gifts. Songs that remind me of winter(or at least the winter of my youth): Chasing Cars less than 1500 words “Yo, Bart, see that to the left — they’re the Northern Lights, yeah?” His cousin’s voice crackled into JP’s cab from the radio. “That’s West, idiot.” Bart’s own, newer pickup was further ahead, little more than a smudge of tail lights in the darkness. JP pulled down his mic from its spot above the windscreen. “Sure, right, but think for a second. We’re in the North already. So they can still be the Northern Lights. They’re just to the West from us.” Bart was silent for a while. JP knew that he ought to be keeping all of his attention on the ice-slicked ribbon of the road as it wound through the darkly lit pines, but he couldn’t help glancing out his driver’s side window at the pulsating blue light above the treeline. When Bart spoke again, he had clearly been laughing. “Oh man. Kid, you crack me up. Northern Lights to the West. Yeah, sure.” JP couldn’t understand why Bart found it so funny. But then, that was true for a lot of things his cousin said. It wasn’t just that even after a full year in the rural North he was still adjusting to a new way of life. That was part of it, but there was something else too — a persistent sense that Bart was enjoying a joke that JP had never been let into. JP had been sixteen when his mom died and he’d suddenly had to move in with his only living relative. Back in the city, he’d had friends, the internet worked, and while he’d never quite plucked up the courage to talk to girls his own age, at least they existed. Now he attended a high school with six students total, all of whom, like Bart, still viewed him as an incorrigible outsider. They played tricks on him about fictitious local customs, laughing when he showed up at school wearing Christmas antlers on November 11, all ready for what he thought was ‘reindeer day’. When he wasn’t at school, JP practised driving his cousin’s beat up old vehicles up and down his winding driveway, ready to finish getting his licence. Bart himself was always out on his “errands”. JP didn’t understand exactly what his cousin’s job involved, but the house was full of cartons and papers labelled with the name of a medical company — B&F Pharmaceutical — so he assumed it was something like delivering medicines to the outlying farms. This was the first time Bart had agreed to take JP with him on one of his trips. When JP asked if it was a problem that he only had a learner’s permit, Bart’s answer had been unusually direct: “Who do you think’s gonna check?” “Snow’s getting real bad now, Bart,” JP said into his radio mic. No reply. The haze between their vehicles had thickened until he could hardly see Bart’s truck at all, behind the thick white flakes spiralling in the glare of his own headlights. Another white shape darted into the road from the left. He slammed the breaks, but he could feel the wheels of the truck sliding beneath him. Something banged against the fender, hard. When he finally came to a stop just inches from the valley edge, he looked back to see the person he had hit lying in a heap on the verge. A woman: pale white skin, a thin white dress, barefoot — in this temperature? She must be crazy. “Oh gently caress, man. I loving just hit someone, dude. I’m going out to see.” “Wait!” came Bart’s distorted reply, but JP was already gone, pulling his thick coat about him. “Yo, lady, what the gently caress was that? Maybe loving look where you’re going next time, eh?” He squatted down beside her and shook her shoulder roughly. He didn’t feel guilty about hitting her — there was no way that was his fault — but he knew she’d be dead within a half hour if he didn’t get her inside. That was if she wasn’t dead already. Then there’d be real trouble. “Wake up lady, come on. Want me to take you to a hospital? Psych ward?” Her eyes flashed open. For a second they almost looked yellow as they reflected his car’s tail lights. “No hospital. No doctors. Run.” “Run? I can’t just leave you. You are, like, literally going to die.” Then there was a bassy popping sound from the snowy forest, like staccato thunder. With resounding cracks, the road beside them erupted into sprays of ice and asphalt. From there everything happened so fast that he didn’t realise what he was doing. Maybe it was because he had already got it into his head to help this woman, but before JP knew it he had grabbed her by the armpits, hoisted her into the passenger seat of his cab, and sunk the accelerator. “Not that way!” the woman objected as she buckled her seatbelt. “That’s towards them. Turn around!” Without thinking, JP pulled a messy u-turn and sped off back in the direction of Bart’s cabin. He grabbed his mic as he got up to speed. “Bart, man, I’m heading back. Something loving crazy is going on out here. I just let this chick into… Argh!” Pain shot through his wrist. The woman had clasped it in an iron grip, so hard he had no choice but to let the mic spring back to its socket. Her strength was incredible, her touch frigid. It was only then that he realised that she had never shown any sign of reacting to the cold. She wasn’t shivering, and while her skin was pale, it was a neutral white, neither the blue of pneumonia or the angry red tracks left by broken capillaries. “You did what?” came Bart’s reply, distorted by the snow. The woman smashed her fist into the console, sending out a shower of sparks. “No more radio. Just go." Something caught the corner of JP's vision. He looked out through the trees to see a group of figures in heavy tactical gear running through the snow, holding assault rifles. When they saw his car, they kneeled and began firing. "What the gently caress lady, are they police?" She shook her head. A bullet ripped through the passenger side window, exiting with a neat hole through the windshield. Cold air tore into the vehicle, alongside a shower of glass. A spotlight passed over him. Overhead, a black helicopter strafing in the night air, the snow in the light of its spotlight swirling like dust in an UFO’s tractor beam. On its flank, in bold white print, read “B&F Pharmaceutical”. A voice boomed from the helicopter’s sound system: “To the driver of the black road truck: Be aware that you are harbouring a dangerous fugitive. Stop now and we will let you go free.” “Don’t listen to them!” screamed the woman. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Some guy just brought me here. They did things to me, horrible things. I’ll die if they catch me.” He glanced at her as much as he dared while keeping his eyes on the road. JP knew that he had often, in the past, been accused of being overly credulous. But the fear in her eyes told him that there was no way this woman was lying. He floored the accelerator. The engine in Bart’s beat up old truck could give so much more, but it was something. A glance in the back mirror told him that a vehicle was approaching from behind and gaining on them rapidly. A vehicle he recognised. Bart pulled past him on the right, the two trucks barely able to fit side by side on the winding road. To his the left, JP was inches from the rock wall, tearing past them with alarming speed. Behind Bart lay a steep drop down into the valley. Bart wound down his window, shouting to JP as if his passenger wasn’t there. “They’re right, Cos. She’s dangerous. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.” “Yo, Bart, you work for these assholes? What the gently caress is going on?” The woman’s features sparked with recognition. “It’s him! They call him the Catcher, the one who brings them their test subjects.” Suddenly, the panic and confusion coursing through JP’s system was replaced by an ice-cold certainty. He was done with being hosed with. He would do what was right. He would ram his cousin off the road. As soon as the rock wall gave him space, he pulled back his vehicle then swerved right into his cousin’s truck. Their chassis collided with a shower of sparks, but the momentum wasn’t enough to make a difference. It didn’t have to be. With an animal howl, the woman dove through the shattered window and into Bart’s cab. The last thing JP saw before he went plummeting off the road into the icy forest was his cousin’s red blood dribbling down her snow-white chin, the truck careening wildly around them, white fur sprouting from her arms.
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Dec 25, 2022 17:36
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One day gravity stops working consistently, but only for specific items. Christmas Steve Crocodile picture Someone receives three gifts of widely varying utility to their situation! The First Christmas After 1190 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Dec 31, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 05:54
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This far South, this time of year 700 words Farmer Wendell Ramsden tapped the strand of grass between his teeth with his tongue, making it bob up and down. “You’ll save on vet bills,” he allowed, at last. His neighbour, Tony McKenzie, considered this. In front of them the object of their attentions, a well-fleshed Jersey, chewed its cud as it bobbed placidly forty centimetres above the grass. “Wasn’t spending too much on hooves this year actually Wendell, ground's been alright. Bit of rain, not too much.” “Last year, half my herd got foot rot.” Tony nodded in rueful sympathy. “Next life I’ll be a vet, those buggers coin it going and coming." He was silent a moment, eyes following the up-and-down movement. “Thinking of calling the vet, actually. Might be a natural condition, like, uh,” Tony stopped, brow furrowed. “Bloating?” Wendell offered. “Bloating! Exactly. Some buildup of gas. Maybe there’s a pill.” Wendell’s face assumed a look that acknowledged the potential for there to be a pill, but did not wish to place any great weight upon that possibility. After a moment he leant forward and pushed the cow in its broad tea-coloured chest. She slid back in the air a metre, and blinked at him. “They milking alright?” Tony inclined his head to the side. “A little better, if anything. Blokes needed to change the hoses so they’d reach the udders, but I had some spare, so…” He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “Kids say they can jump higher since they’ve been drinking it, but, you know. Kids.” “Well, Antony old mate, I think you have a phenomenon. Thought about charging admission? Loopies would eat it up.” Tony considered this for a moment. “Better check with the missus, eh?” Three months later things had gone a bit south. A long line of Auckland types were milling around the kitchen door as Wendell pushed his way through. Tony’s wife Cheryl waved a distracted hand at him. “He’s out the back Wendell, see if you can talk some sense into him? Take him out a cuppa, too, it’s on the bench!” Tony was in the yard with a small herd, all floating in their usual undramatic fashion. Wendell looked up at Tony, who was doing likewise. “Strewth,” he said. “So the kids weren’t wrong about the milk then?” Tony was sitting comfortably on the air, gumbooted feet crossed. “To be honest Wendell, it was more a state of mind.” “Gravity? You’re saying it’s optional now?” “Apparently to a greater extent than hitherto thought, mate.” Wendell handed up the hot mug of tea. “How do you go with the farming, though? Can you still drive the tractor?” “It’s a work in progress. Cheryl’s been helping out. Thinking of packing it in actually, selling to my brother. Take the show on the road.” He blew on the tea and took a sip. “What, the Amazing Tony and his Hovering Heifers?” Tony shook his head. “They’ve mostly calved. But yeah, why not. That bloke up the valley put all his land into bitcoin, this is basically the same thing. Made out like gangbusters.” Wendell considered it. “Well, best of luck mate. I’ll come see you when you’ve got a matinee on.” Six months after that, all the cows crashed to earth, and so did Tony. Wendell sighed when he got the text, and got in the ute. “So what was it? State of mind?” Tony had his leg up on a chair, encased in a white plaster. “So I thought, mate, but now I’m not so sure. Lost a couple of good milkers from it but, you know, only live once.” Wendell nodded then frowned, suddenly thoughtful. “I’ve been wondering though, is there something more to it? It was an unprecedented happenstance.” Tony shook his head. “Nah, mate. I reckon sometimes things just happen. Pity about the stock though. Oh we’re having one of them tonight, stay for dinner?” Wendell did like steak, so he said yes that would be good.
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Dec 26, 2022 05:54
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Week #542. Prompts used:Antivehicular posted:Prompt #1 (The Festive Panopticon): Pththya-lyi posted:Bodyguard, Alien derp posted:"kids we're getting a REAL tree this year" + a beehive that no one noticed Skookum Shots Seasonal Special: Human Rituals in Review 619 words Xeenaph the human research assistant scanned quickly through her photo references, eye stalks swivelling and flicking up and down. “Further up.” She shifted the garland around the tree accordingly, mouth a tight line. She was covered in glitter, from her spindly legs to the rough spiral shell on her back. “Perfect,” she muttered. “It must be perfect for Kchuulu.” The tree was impeccably decorated—a fluffy tutu around the base, sparkly garlands strung round the branches, and a lumpy candle on top, just like the reference pictures showed. Sap clung to Xeenaph’s delicate fingertips, the cloying smell competing with dust and cinnamon. She raked them over her shiny carapace while calling, “Kchuulu! It’s ready.” Her acclaimed boss clattered into the display room, weighed down with documentary paraphernalia. “Oooooh, yes!” Her eye stalks stood up straight and bright. “You’ve outdone yourself Xeenaph. A real tree!” “A real tree! Harvested just hours ago,” she confirmed proudly. “Remarkable.” Kchuulu lugged a camera tripod around the tree in circles, pausing here and there to peer into the viewfinder. “I must find the perfect angle, where the light is caught…” “Wait!” Xeenaph sprang forward. “We adjust that ourselves.” She struck a match against the edge of her shell and held it up to the candle jammed onto the top of the tree, lighting it. “Ooooh! Perfect.” “Perfect.” The candlelight danced across their skin, the sparkles sparkled, the fir began smoking, and, just as the camera timer was set to count down, the bees came out. “Oooooh,” Kchuulu said. “Oh,” Xeenaph said. “Bzzzz,” the bees said. One landed on Kchuulu’s head, right between two eyestalks. They twirled to focus on it. To focus on another, smaller one that landed beside it, and began to gently flap its wings. Then another one. And another. “OH,” Kchuulu said as the swarm descended on her in pursuit of their queen. “Don’t panic!” Xeenaph took ten steps back across the room. “I will.” She turned and raced for the door. “Xeenaph! I need the perfect photo for this year’s Human Rituals in Review and your credit will accurately reflect your contributions!” She teetered on the edge of escape. Then she dutifully spun back around and retrieved her reference index screen, barking, “Minuscule! Buzzing! Pointy! Tree-adjacent!” The machinery whirled, pulling up likely culprits—hummingbirds, mosquitoes, and— “Bees!” Bees live in colonies. They can be identified by— She skipped ahead. To defend themselves, they may bite or sting. “Oh.” Her boss stood frozen, eyestalks sticking up stiffly. “Uh.” Humans commonly harvest a sticky substance called ‘honey.’ Xeenaph eyed the sap staining her fingers and carapace. The colony follows their queen, identifiable by… She looked carefully back at the swarm climbing all over Kchuulu. …pacified by smoke. “I have a plan!” Xeenaph said, leaping forward with her sticky fingers extended. She drove toward the centre of the mass of bees, reaching for the queen, and came up with Kchuulu’s eyestalk. “What are you doing?!” “Uh.” Xeenaph attempted to pull back, but the sap held fast to both of them, threatening to tear their delicate skin. The bees began to crawl up her arm. “Time for step two,” she declared with volume in place of confidence. Flinching, she grabbed Kchuulu’s arm with her other hand and marched them both toward the tree. The fire had spread somewhat, but the smoke was rising up and out of range. “Step three?” Xeenaph hunted down the end of the garland and yanked hard, shaking the branches. She looped one end around Kchuulu’s shoulders, and put another loop around her own. Then raised what she could to meet the flames. They both screamed as the garland lit up. The tree was burning. They were burning. The camera shutter clicked.
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Dec 26, 2022 05:59
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The Department of You 705 words The thing you have to remember is that nothing is lost, nothing forgotten. At the end of this universe, before the beginning of the next, each electron and proton, each photon and neutrino and quark and dancing stringlet remembers, and as they are reclaimed by void they recite their histories. The mind that perceives them is vast, unimaginably slow and fast at once. Every word you know is too small for it. Better to think of it as a community, itself larger than any you have encountered. A massive bureaucracy covering city-planets the size of galaxies dedicated to analyzing and collating each mote of the retiring cosmos. And in one office in that vast complex work a dozen or so intelligences with no duties, no interests, no calls on their attention or time other than you. They saw you in your cradle, they will see your last breath. They will turn the planck-second slices of data collapsing into the black hole at the end of time into moments, into the pieces of a life. Your first kiss, your best, your worst, your least meaningful. In their work they will reassemble the not quite an alleyway but not really a street outside of Froman's, the hal Terminal A12 at the Atlanta International Airport, that place in Junipero Middle School's playground where nobody could really see from where the teachers usually sat before the summer that the giant oak, scarred with generations of initials, was finally cut down, and beneath the fake mistletoe taped to the sprinkler in violation of code at your office Christmas party two years back. And they will understand. There are other departments that will have built up the context for the department of you. Offices that slowly learned what a kiss was, what an airport, a street, a tree, an initial. And, of course, they will be in close communication with the other departments of the people you have brushed lips with along your way. Some work so closely that some of the members of those offices will form attachments to those in yours, a mirror of a sort. They are not impersonal. They are not robots or angels without emotion. To understand you they have to become capable of feeling as you have. It sometimes gets messy. It would be wrong to say that they will not judge you. Nothing is more human, more part of what is required. But they do not judge you as a judge would, nor as a divinity doling out justice and mercy in some inscrutable balance. If there is such, it will have happened long ago, at the hands of other intelligences than the one they are part of. No, they judge you as might a parent, or a friend, or as you would yourself if they each had the perfect knowledge that they do. They know your darkest moments, your greatest shame. And they know the consequences of your carelessness in ways you will never, the times where you could have changed a life with a smile or a shove, and never knew. Sometimes it is too much. Retirement and suicide are much the same to the shards of supreme mind that are the office workers, and some Departments have a crushingly high retirement rate. You probably know most of their names. The Department of You will not end when your life does. It remains, as a resource, to help other Departments understand where the lives they observe were touched by yours, until the very last trace has faded away. When someone you knew wonders about something you did. When a joke you invented, or reinvented for a new audience spreads. When a tune you whistled, turned into a birdsong by a mimic, is heard by someone who on it bases a composition. When someone reads a book and comes across a short passage you underline with such vigor that adjacent pages were scored. When digital archeologists run searches through the posts of long-dead websites. When a stranger passes by a memorial plaque and marvels at the dates that limn your lifetime. Your Department will not truly close down before the extinction of the last lines of posthumanity. Very few Departments do.
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Dec 26, 2022 06:12
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Submissions are closed.
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Dec 26, 2022 12:11
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Disqualified, but here are my words! (Got caught up with family and underestimated how tired I'd be when I got back to my hotel, alas...) Jingle of Duty: Merry Warfare Words: 842  Special Agent Briggs and his operatives had just landed on the edge of a drifting sheet of ice in the middle of the arctic circle. Briggs was a veteran of several wet work operations, but never before has a single operation involved this degree of secrecy or this many taxpayer dollars. He looked at the multi-million dollar single-use deployment pods that he and the operatives had been ejected from then turned his attention to the other operatives who were each off to fulfill their part of the mission. When put on paper the mission seemed as normal as any other, but it was the specifics that Briggs doubted, that made Briggs feel as if he was playing part in some joke that he was just not in on. It was only when they were confronted with the relentless wind and bone-biting cold that he gave his mission any real credence, if only for their survival. “Walrus, set up the comm. sat. and let the command know that we’ve reached our destination. Wolf, find a perch 1 click from the target coordinates and get a line of sight on any tangos—” Briggs said before being interrupted. Wolf, whose eyes were the only thing visible beneath his camouflage and arctic dressings, squinted incredulously, “Sir, no disrespect intended, but are we really expecting anything out here?” Briggs sighed, “Whether or not this is some ludicrously priced training mission for a real Op down the line, we’re going to treat this just like we would any other mission. There’s a threat we’re going to eliminate with surgical precision, understood?” “Sir, yes sir.” Wolf said, before setting off along the glacial terrain with his spotter, Narwhal in tow. “Hare, you and I will approach from the southern access. Then, Walrus, after communications have been established. You’ll join with Goose and we’ll all rendezvous at the zone of operations forming a complete enclosure around any hostiles. Everyone understand their objectives?” “Sir, yes sir.” The agents responded in unison, and then they were off. * * * As Briggs and Hare approached their rendezvous point, they found themselves thoroughly caught off guard by what they saw. Candy canes the size of light poles erupted from the ice in neat rows leading to a campus of gingerbread buildings with gumdrops and colored icing adorning them. Diminutive persons in thick green and red sherpa fleeces and striped stockings gallivanted about with complete efficiency moving various wrapped packages between buildings. “What in the fu—” “Ho, ho, ho…” Santa chuckled almost derisively as he clapped a thick-mitted hands on the shoulders of Briggs and Hare. “Language, boys. You wouldn’t want to end up on the naughty list, now would you?” Briggs and Hare snapped away immediately, falling into crouched positions, weapons hot, and unloaded a volley of bullets at their assailant who vanished into a cloud of swirling snowflakes. “Now, now!” Santa’s voice echoed from the surrounding snow. “What the gently caress!? Was that Santa Claus, like, THE Santa Claus?!” Hare asked Briggs. “I—I don’t know.” Briggs said as unsettled as Hare was. They turned their attention back to the houses and found that peppermint-tinted emergency lights had activated, a sleighbell alarm jingling with each flash. “Just remember the mission.” Briggs said, as he racked his gun, “Search and destroy.” It was when they heard barrages of gunfire and accompanying sleigh bells ringing through the radio that they became worried. “Let’s just double back, captain. Let them know it was a trap,” but no sooner than Hare had made the suggestion did they find themselves surrounded by elves armed with striped candy guns. “Easy now, soldiers. Wouldn’t want this to get messy, eh?” one of the Elves said while the others laughed giddily. * * * What followed would have broken the most strict and trained of soldiers across the world. “Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! now , Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen! Wait, wait, wait? Where’s Rudolph?” Santa said, Mrs. Claus and the elves laughing beside them. Briggs, with faux, felt antlers on top of his head, a shining red ball on his nose, clopped inside the room on all fours. Hooved sleeves covered his arms and legs. “Come now, Rudolph! The other reindeer are waiting! There are so many presents to deliver and how will they see in this dark night without their cherished leader?” Briggs trot slowly to the other soldiers, each nude except for the reindeer equipment they’d been forced to wear. Santa kissed Mrs. Claus on the cheek, “Alright, dear, I’m off. Thank goodness we got these strong soldiers to help us deliver presents. Send a letter of thanks to the President and let them know our accord is still in place for another year.” “Be careful, my love.” Mrs. Claus replied. “Always, my sweet, and a Merry Christmas to you, and to you, and even you dear reader, and to all, a good night! Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!”
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Dec 26, 2022 17:06
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Sitting Here posted:My thoughts about others' thoughts, in no particular order: Adding my voice as a middling, long-dormant TD participant. When I began TD long ago, the two things that made it a valuable place were (aside from the magnificent community) the losing and the crits. I lost two out of my first three entries, and was given swift, mostly accurate, well-intentioned feedback. The secret of getting better at things, as Phoenix points out, is practicing it; in TD, my writing was given stakes (if minimal, and mostly imaginary) and then legitimate feedback on how to improve. And I did. Without these two things, I'm not sure this place has the same value. It would just be a different place. Perhaps it requires a certain specific mindset to accept this, but catering to a different mindset might rob this place of the unique value that it brings to the table. Perhaps some adjustments to rules (no losing on your first week? some sort of consequence for judges who fail to post even nominal crits?) are in order, but, idk, I'm with SH, if my voice matters. TD may die, but TD should die facing its enemies, or some such macho nonsense
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Dec 26, 2022 21:07
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Since it seems to keep coming up I’d like to clarify my point was not about losing or ITT kayfabe or receiving crits. Only one, anonymous person has suggested they don’t want crits. I don’t agree and think that defeats the entire purpose of TD. I love that people here actually read my work and tell me how it landed for them, that’s invaluable. I also like the kayfabe and think it can help people step outside their comfort zone. Giving crits, writing even when you don’t have a “good” idea, it’s all skills that require practice to build. My point was only that it means this thread is not a good place for discussion or questions. And I’m convinced it’s a need because it’s happening on Discord. If you aren’t in the Discord it’s impossible to tell that you can do story swaps in advance of submission or ask clarifying questions about the crits you receive or ask for advice on how to be a judge. That isn’t happening on the forums and from reading the thread there’s no way to know it’s happening elsewhere. I literally didn’t suggest changes to TD, just that we have somewhere on the forums for newcomers to get oriented, if new blood is what TD needs. I only participated in TD after joining the Discord, and I only joined the Discord because I volunteered to beta read a novel for someone via the fiction writing advice thread. (Of course I’m now torturing you all with terrible words, so this may not be a winning argument.)
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Dec 26, 2022 22:16
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kaom posted:Since it seems to keep coming up I’d like to clarify my point was not about losing or ITT kayfabe or receiving crits. Only one, anonymous person has suggested they don’t want crits. I don’t agree and think that defeats the entire purpose of TD. I love that people here actually read my work and tell me how it landed for them, that’s invaluable. I also like the kayfabe and think it can help people step outside their comfort zone. Giving crits, writing even when you don’t have a “good” idea, it’s all skills that require practice to build. I think this is a really good observation, and is the reason I plan on opening a companion thread! The discord is nice, but I don't think people should necessarily have to go off-site to learn about the competition (the TD archive being a notable exception, though it's possible to do TD without interacting with the archive).
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Dec 26, 2022 22:23
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Speaking as a first timer to TD, I'm competing here to learn the craft and, aside from kidnapping better writers and grafting thin slices of their brain onto mine, I don't know a way to get better without people telling me where I'm going wrong.kaom posted:Only one, anonymous person has suggested they don’t want crits. I don’t agree and think that defeats the entire purpose of TD. Sitting Here posted:I think this is a really good observation, and is the reason I plan on opening a companion thread! The discord is nice, but I don't think people should necessarily have to go off-site to learn about the competition (the TD archive being a notable exception, though it's possible to do TD without interacting with the archive). As to the suggestions of how to handle first-timers, BeefSupreme suggested possibly "no losing" for your first week of TD, but that seems a little problematic to me. Maybe soften the blow by changing any losses or DMs to something like "TD newcomer/virgin/new blood" for first week contestants? Sort of like, "Hey, you've got room to improve, but thanks for joining, hope you'll come back."
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Dec 27, 2022 00:52
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Admiralty Flag posted:Speaking as a first timer to TD, I'm competing here to learn the craft and, aside from kidnapping better writers and grafting thin slices of their brain onto mine, I don't know a way to get better without people telling me where I'm going wrong. And here's where I'll do my yearly hippy chime in that losertars are bad and I don't like them.
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Dec 27, 2022 01:54
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I honestly didn't/don't mind the losertar. Since I knew I planned to continue entering, the prospect of winning and replacing or getting a new avatar was always something to work towards. To me, I view the losertar like a badge of honor, in the same way I do the gang tag. If nothing else, it means you did something.
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Dec 27, 2022 02:20
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I agree, and anyway a funny avatar among friends could be good practice for getting 50+ rejections per year
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Dec 27, 2022 02:38
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Seeing a 2012 era losertar in the wild makes my whole day 
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Dec 27, 2022 02:43
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Ceighk posted:Chasing Cars Hopefully this is an accepted form of Critique. Google doc has some more in-depth comments. If you don't like the critique you can brawl me in a story involving clitorises and Cthulhu. Overall I enjoyed this, but didn’t want to read more, nor would I remember this piece. The middle is my jam, my fellow writer! We got things happening, we got mystical ladies in dresses up to no good. We got action and we got choices and consequences happening. Why I wouldn’t want to read more is the ending execution is rushed. JP suddenly makes this decision because he “knows he can trust this crazy lady that I hit with a car”. My suspension of disbelief shattered, and I actively questioned JP’s choice (and not those good kind of questions). I couldn’t connect JP’s decision to any meaningful character arc. If I was invested in JP, I know I could let that pass, and get into it. The start is why I wouldn’t remember this piece. The start is setting up backstory and trying to show Bart is an rear end in a top hat. I got so caught up in the directions and aurora borealis that I didn’t catch what the scene was trying to do. Then when the piece jumped into who and what JP was, and his school history, I wanted more plot, than backstory. Finally, while Bart might be making a stupid joke, I find that this doesn’t set up the relationship enough to justify JP trying to kill/run Bart off the road. But this is an awesome story considering you had a week to write it! I see a solid story in here, with some rushed execution. I come away from this wanting to give you more words so you can flesh out the characters and relationships more! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KNqrBVxiRzUyBKgvyTRiaOLgV1vJ7wfgFXj9O4Alcew/edit?usp=sharing
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Dec 27, 2022 21:24
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My proposal regarding losertars is that they only last until you submit a non-losing story, to keep people coming back
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Dec 27, 2022 21:36
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People can already get rid of their losertar whenever they want.
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Dec 27, 2022 22:48
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TD 542 RESULTS First of all, the good news: 10 entries and no failures on a holiday week! Thank you all for showing up for this contest. I sincerely appreciate it. In terms of quality, though, this week was rocky: too many flash rules, maybe? Lots of depressing stuff and stuff that didn't stick its landing. Still, you all wrote something, and that's great. Loser: Something Else, "The Santa Suit" DMs: Admirality Flag, "The Gift that would Keep On Giving"; derp, "yesterday's snow"; Idle Amalgam, "Jingle of Duty: Merry Warfare" HM: Yoruichi, "The First Christmas After" Winner: sebmojo, "This far South, this time of year" And so the throne returns to the old blood at the turning of the year. Congratulations, Seb! Please don't kill us all.
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Dec 27, 2022 23:48
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Crits for Week #542 Overall, this week had a lot of slice of life work in it. A small moment, a piece of a story, a concept for something greater which makes sense given that people might have had other things going on this week. I just wish there'd been a little bit more to celebrate about it all. Admiralty Flag - The Gift that Will Keep on Giving: This first paragraph is really good. I like the detail, it really sets up a character and a scene. I know where I am, when I am and what kind of details the protagonist notices. But after that first paragraph, the details become less about a precise character and more about telling me what’s happening so that there are no ambiguities in what any of this can possibly mean. The concept of a gift as a mystery that needs to be solved with a list of suspects all with motivations and shady past dealings with the protagonist’s daughter is a good place to start from. And I like the immediate character connection that gives us between Daniél and his daughter. But the way in which it’s done, with bland, unrealistic dialogue, big blocks of descriptions that are nothing like the first paragraph and don’t integrate with story in a way that moves it forward, and quick glossing over serious trauma and deep issues such as mental health (both with mother and daughter) puts me right off. Then I have to read an encounter between the mother and ex-husband, which should be fraught with emotion from both sides but somehow the protagonist has perfect composure. And it ends in death with no discernible growth from any of the characters involved. No deeper meaning with regard to getting help for mental illness. No real payoff at all. It reads almost like a newspaper report of the whole situation. Chernobyl Princess - Aschenputtel: Well this stops where everything’s just getting started. I like this interpretation of the prompt and this could really go places, especially if the animals do get into the palace. Like, what do they do after she marries the prince? Or what do they do after she doesn’t marry the prince and now she has to flee from her step-family some other way, maybe becoming a forest-person. Then the animals can really come into their own as mentors and guardians. This is another piece mostly told to the reader, but it works in general because it’s a fairy tale style story and the teller is a collective. Some of the individual sentences are nice. And it especially works when the animals have their little disagreement about what they would like to do to the step-sisters because it gives the narrative personality that a simply told tale would not have. And when they’re delirious with excitement about the ball. The collective personality that is sometimes in opposition to itself is something that could be explored more. As is, it’s not even half a story. And I’d like to see more of the young girl through their eyes to really deepen the narrative beyond the fairy tale surface. Something Else - The Santa Suit: This is so well written. I didn’t stop reading it once. The balance between forward momentum of the story and details that explain the bare minimum (almost, more on this later) of how we got to this point is perfect. Santa with a business manager, intriguing. Posing for an ad, yes, do tell. All the crew on the naughty list, yes, perfect. I am on board! Santa comes off as a perfectly befuddled and joyous sort of character despite how much he knows about everything. And then Turkeah appears and she… serves a very uncomfortable purpose. But at least that’s conveyed in her actions and words. Her motivations are clear and she makes good points that might very well sway Santa… if we knew what Santa wanted. So Santa has a business manager. He’s making an ad. But for what? I’m thinking that Santa’s a little worried about the importance of Christmas lessening (or something along those lines) and that’s why he’s got the fancy new suit and is taking a little trip down south before the big day. But that motivation isn’t quite on the page enough. It just needs like one more line, if, in fact, this is what Santa’s reasons for doing all of this is. Maybe I’m missing it entirely because it’s not quite spelled out enough for me. But if this is the case, then Turkeah’s advances might very well work on Santa. The reader will have that moment of doubt, questioning whether or not Santa will give into this plot. Before, of course, denying Turkeah’s advances and running away back to the North Pole, where Mrs. Claus reminds him that he’s still the man she married and is nothing less, despite the lessening of the holiday. And then the returning of the suit means more to the reader, because we see it as Santa no longer needing that life he originally set up at the beginning. And his ultimate rejection of Turkeah. And with just that little bit more info this story follows a perfect arc. But without that motivation in there, we have instead a long talk in judge discussion about the sexual harassment of Santa and the creepiness of the whole thing and then it all falls apart. So uh, watch out for that when you’re leaving out motivations. The prose is already pretty dang perfect. At least for me. Never got ejected from the narrative. derp - yesterday's snow: There are 8 instances in the first paragraph of the verb to be (was, were, had been). And while I’m not one of those people who believes writers should eliminate all forms of repeating a word, repetition of the same sentence construction or verb usage does have an effect on the writing. If that effect is intentional, great! But if it’s not, see the difference: ”derp” posted:The snow was melting, I heard it dripping off the roof and trickling down the gutters, and outside the snowman that the children built was tilting and slumping toward the patchy pavement. Christmas was over. Transforms into: quote:The snow melted. It dripped off the roof and trickled down the gutters, and outside, the snowman that the children had built tilted and slumped toward the patchy pavement. Christmas was over. That last sentence keeping the “was” becomes more powerful because of the evocative, more active constructions that come before it. And then the reader feels that initial scene building. Because the starter image is a good one. The motivation of a character to keep the feelings of joy and camaraderie and community that they have around holidays is a legitimate one and can spur them to do almost anything. And while the lol, random, absurdity of this protagonists’ actions weren’t the best written, I think they could have been saved, at least narratively, if there had been one final scene at the end where we see what happens when the police arrive. Does he get locked up with the town’s rowdy drunks and petty criminals? Does this help him feel like he’s part of a communal gathering again, albeit one slightly different? Or is he in a cell alone again and he realizes that the Christmas spirit can’t save you? There are possibilities for exploration here. Ceighk - Chasing Cars: This story has two moods. The first half is contemplative, questioning, wondering about a new place and the protagonist’s place within it (three long paragraphs of exposition that I’d like to see woven into the narrative a little more to keep me interested as a reader). And then BAM he hits someone with a truck and then it turns into an action sequence with helicopters and automatic rifles and hard decisions about killing your cousin. And while I wouldn’t say that these two are different stories entirely, I will say that for them to fit together, the first part needs to set up JP’s character in a way that the reader understands why he makes the choices that he does in the second half. Because I can definitely jump on the suspension of disbelief train for whatever weirdness is happening with the pharmaceuticals industry having weird experiments going on with a whole mercenary team to protect their assets, I just need to have that telegraphed, even in a subtle way like JP questioning what exactly Bart might be doing to him now. Because after a year of pranks and subterfuges, even a teenager is going to question whether he should always trust his cousin. Put that question at the beginning and then when it happens to be some incredibly action movie type poo poo, it’s at least not completely unexpected. And JP’s choice in the end to stop being hosed with means more. The dialogue is good. I believe these are teens. The descriptions of the scenes are good. Action is clear, setting/environment is clear. The why of it all is missing because we never really get to the end. Our last image is with the woman taking out Bart which doesn’t let us see what sort of conclusion JP comes to about the situation, his life, what he’s going to do now that he’s got some pharmacy people on his tail. Yoruichi - The First Christmas After: I love this use of the levitation prompt. It’s not just there to be interesting or even (as Sebmojo did) as the crux of the plot that sets everything into motion. It’s merely a thing in this world that becomes meaningful to the character when it is achieved. This makes it poignant and got a smile out of me, even as I realized that Hannah would soon be floating too. It also prompts me to wonder what is keeping other people in the house grounded. It also helps provide an easy comparison to Hannah’s past Christmases. And because you have that easy dichotomy, I think some of the detail about how Aaron’s family celebrates could be cut in favor or more build-up of the Hannah-Grace relationship. Or strengthen the Aaron-Hannah one. Or explore Hannah’s internality just a little bit more. Because right now, all of those details are fairly straight forward which works, but could be elevated. I like that the hippo which was definitely of no use to Hannah at the beginning of the story, finds some great, very Hippo-like use at the end. There are many lovely moments in this story that I could go around saying I like, I like, I like. Elevating my readership to love would take a little stronger connection between Hannah and Aaron/Aaron’s family to see that evolution take place. Strong work. sebmojo - This far South, this time of year: Despite occurring over a 9-month period, I would call this a slice of life story as well, and also the most successful. Perfectly well-written. Fascinating idea and kind of exploration of it. The characters feel real, very salt of the earth, used to not understanding the complexities of the natural world, but pushing on regardless, because, hey, you gotta live. And as happens when I read most of your stories, I assume I’m missing something. Some deeper meaning about our relationship with the natural world, YOLO, or just being there for your very weird friends. But even without knowing what that is, it was enjoyable to read all the same. kaom - Skookum Shots Seasonal Special: Human Rituals in Review: Another story that captures a moment. And quite literally with the camera. It’s a madcap moment with a lot of potential comedy. But it needed a little more thought, an editing pass and several hundred more words. As is, there are a lot of things that are unclear that would contribute to it being a more fleshed out story. We’ve got characters and a scene and an inciting incident, but none of it has the precision it needs to keep me interested. Despite the eyestalks. I’m unsure of the motivations of both Xeenaph and Kchuulu. Sure I understand why they’re doing things initially (because it’s their job, because they need content for their quarterly publication), but why do they continue to try despite the danger? How do they feel about each other? What does this tree mean for their future? Now that there are bees, do any of these things change? The action is also confusing. Not sure when the fire started to spread before they set the garland on fire? And everything happens fast except when it doesn’t. I realize that all of this has to take place in the like 10 seconds from when the timer is set to when it clicks, but there’s a whole escape attempt, a researching of bees and then a “solution” to the problem. But it’s just so unclear as to be confusing. And I am absolutely befuddled by the first part of the title. Thranguy - The Department of You: Cool concept. Well thought out. Incredible analogy. I’d like to see a story set within the bureaucracy of existence. There’s a bit of one here, but in the end I’d like to see this transform into a story that needs to use this concept of an all knowing consciousness and they navigate it like a large departmental bureaucracy or else personifying the bureaucracy and making the story within it. But I could go on about what this story could possibly be. As is, it was cool to read about and would be cool to ideate about, would make an awesome prompt for a TD week, but it’s not really a story. Idle Amalgam - Jingle of Duty: Merry Warfare: I honestly don’t know what to say about this one. The prose is fine. Not great, but not anything special. But the story that those words tell is disturbing and odd and makes me uncomfortable. Whereas other stories this week I could see the kernel of a good idea that wasn’t executed well, I really don’t think this idea of Santa using special forces personnel as his reindeer really has any value. It’s really more of a war crime. And I’ll just leave it at that. a friendly penguin fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Dec 28, 2022 00:27
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Admiralty Flag posted:The Gift that Will Keep on Giving Overall I was invested in the characters in this piece, and you can tell because when the denouement hit I wanted to know more about other characters reactions. The start was interesting, we are immediately given a hooking question, and I wanted to find out about those gifts! There was a bit at the start where the question was raised: Who brought the flowers? As we go down the list of suspects, we kind of lose a bit of the hook in your question. This was due to the daughter doing her own thing, and the father not caring about the gifts as much. It was a weird speed bump, and necessitated more prose and more lists of suspects to get the story on track. When the ex-wife arrived I wouldn’t stop reading, being invested in the story now and getting to the payoff. I noticed a bit of a continuity snarl (Or was it a sinister remark) when the father mentions they talked about this, but I don’t see where they have. I like this section a lot, and could spend a lot of time dissecting it. But I want you to know it works! I don’t understand what we are trying to do with the ending. I feel sad that the mother died, but I don’t get more from it than that. You could switch it up with their family pet dying, and I’d have the same reaction. Don’t understand what I am supposed to have learned, or realised with the mother dying? Is this an Aesop about how to handle mentally-ill people? Also the ending line doesn’t really connect with anything in the story. Regardless I found this highly entertaining! Impressive you banged this out in a week. I was hooked from the start and continued to be interested up until the near-end. In depth crit here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YGo_g6Szf52LcHu4CJb1VLB0e-rQ5pKQZnSsGjolfyI/edit?usp=sharing
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Dec 28, 2022 01:52
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Crits for Week #542 Part 1 Crits done in judgemode -- stories may be in a different order than how they were posted. This far South, this time of year: I don’t think I “get” your title here. Like yes, Steamed Hams reference, but… why? It’s not connected to your story at all, and the reference doesn’t seem in any way related. Other than… uh, maybe beef? I don’t know. Anyway, this is a cute little story that doesn’t seem to have much to say. Not that every story has to have A Message, but this one also seems to be lacking a point. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t make me feel much other than vague amusement in the moment. You won primarily by dint of being a clean, simple tale that didn't make me confront death, insanity, or sexual assault. It's a Christmas miracle!  Skookum Shots Seasonal Special: Human Rituals in Review: So, best I can tell is that two aliens are doing a photoshoot for a magazine on human rituals, and when it all starts to go horribly wrong, they decide the solution is to take a picture of their self-immolation instead? That doesn't seem much like a story, more like a clip from an extraterrestrial Ben Stiller comedy. This was confusing, both story- and action-wise; you have some confusing bits of dialogue/action happening, and it’s hard to tell who’s saying/doing what on occasion, not to mention why. Also, and this is a common error in the 'dome, but random violence and/or death is not a satisfying ending. I think that you could possibly make this work, but I would need to know 1) who these aliens are and what do they want, 2) how this photoshoot affects them and their relationship/wants, and 3) how did they learn/change from this incident. If you can manage to answer all of these (and clean up your action and attributions), you'll have a solid little story. The Department of You: I see what you’re trying to do here, but I don’t feel like it landed. Just a bit too remote and too broad, not quite enough to connect with. I can see what you wanted the audience to feel, but I didn’t really feel it. I don’t know if this needed more specificity, or length, or both, but it needed something. Considering you left half your word count on the table, I'm a little disappointed. Jingle of Duty: Merry Warfare: Buzzwordsssss. I know I have no real frame of reference for this, but this all seems super generic. Like, I feel like I could probably have written this dialogue just from having seen some generic military-adjacent media. Which is fine, I guess? That seems like maybe what you're going for, and if you're writing a story about a military operation to kill Santa Claus, I guess you don't actually need Real Authentic Military chatter, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It doesn't really add to my enthusiasm, though. Okay, I thought I knew where this was going, and then absolutely the gently caress did not. Also: what the gently caress did I just read. This has the common problem of joke stories in TD of making absolutely no sense, even internally. Like, why would they be told they were going to kill Santa if they were just going to be pulling the sled? How do they pull the sled? Why are they naked? Do they get to go back to their lives after this? Is the forced submission part of the magic? I don't know. I know I'm over-thinking all of this, but these are the kinds of questions that you've raised here, intentionally or not. I mean, clearly you just started with the picture and worked backwards to find a way to make it happen literally, with no creative or metaphorical interpretation, which is... fine, except it just ends up reading like bad fetish porn with a gimmicky cover. Aschenputtel: Like the other judges, I thought this was cute and well-done, it just felt like it could have used a second half. I would actually be really interested in reading it if you wrote more, though, because it was sweet and well-written, and I liked Cindy's mom being a witch.  The Santa Suit: You know, I didn't think that anything could make me more uncomfortable than Naked Reindeer Men, but here we are. I had a somewhat different take on this than the other judges: to me, this read like an extended riff on commercialization and advertising over the "spirit of the season," married to a long, uncomfortable joke about Christmas encroaching on Thanksgiving. And like, why did it have to be a sex thing? If you'd spun it as a business merger and leaned into the commercialization aspect that it seemed like you were going for in the beginning, it would have worked just as well if not better; it certainly would have clarified your overall message and probably would have saved you from the loss. I think it would be valuable to really pinpoint what exactly you were trying to convey with this piece, and make sure that all of the parts of this story worked in service of that. Also, I know penguin liked your prose, but I personally found your dialogue clunky (it seemed you were trying for "realism" over flow, which is always a bad tradeoff), and there are a couple of punctuation and capitalization errors that pulled me out of things (for example, I believe 'naughty-listers' should be hyphenated). Pretty minor overall, but worth mentioning. P.S. Santa did Imelda dirty here; she deserved a better present than a tailored suit that, at best, she’ll end up returning to her work in an unsuccessful attempt to get her docked pay back.
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Dec 28, 2022 04:37
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Week #537 Crits barely a problem - flerp quote:Derin’s hand shined with radiant light, illuminating the dark cave. I rolled my eyes which unfortunately his holy powers let him see. Clumsy wording for a fairly unnecessary statement, I know Derin saw the eyeroll when he responds to it, and you hit the "holy powers" nail a few times throughout the opening. I felt this story had a good opening, with some great, quick setups for plot and character interaction. And then about halfway through, it feels like you got sick of this premise and world and decided to undercut it by repeating yourself blandly and snubbing the characters' potentially impressive moments. There's a genuinely fun sense of humor in the mashup of this very modern tone with a fantasy dungeon delve, but I would have liked to see you commit to it more. The Summit - Thranguy quote:Harrier looked at the open gym bag. His own logo sewn into the side, vanity that made him cringe a little. His climbing tools were all nearly laid out. He pressed a belt clasp and his glidewing armor detached from his torso. He pulled it all the way off and set it down, covering the ropes and picks and pitons. He reached toward his face, to his mask, to his helmet, but pulled back. No. That would stay on. He reached for the comms package near his right ear, though. Pulled it out, crushed the circuits in his hand, and tossed the twisted metal into the bag. He zipped it closed, lifted it up, and in an Olympian hammer swing hurled it off the steepest side of the mountain's slope. There. Done. No way down, no way to call for help. Alone. I like this setup! Harrier cringing at his own branding serves as a bit of a save the cat moment, at least I think I can relate to that. The glidewing armor and mask stuff don't totally add up to what you're going for yet, I initially took this to mean he was a rich but otherwise mundane mountain adventurer. Overall, I like the spare prose and dedication to worldbuilding here, but the action of the story isn't doing enough that I can really comprehend. Offhand references to the Mythosphere, Fafnir, and Imp reproduction mechanics are colorful and fun, but they overwhelmed the story. You lost momentum and Harrier's perspective around the 3-day time-jump - we never really got to see what Harrier was planning to do before he got interrupted by Imp Six (apart from oblique reference to punishment) and Imp Six itself doesn't really have a motive here. It felt a little bit like you gave up on this one. Waiting at the Light - Bad Seafood quote:I have come to this country to meet a stranger. The most important stranger I have never, ever known. To me he is no one in particular, but he means a great deal to my precious little girl.
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Dec 28, 2022 07:06
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THUNDERDOME DXLIII: Novus Annus hello thunderdome, it's been a while. let's keep it simple, in honour of the onrushing new year - write me a story about something happening that's never happened before, and what it means to the people involved. hellrules on request, with a  as is customary.I would like two additional judges, let's start the year off proper; no problem if you haven't done it before. Word Count: 1500 Signups Closed: 11:59 PM PST, Friday Submissions Closed: 11:59 PM PST, Sunday judges: mojo yoruichi obliterati
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Dec 28, 2022 07:58
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I will judge. Tremble before me.
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Dec 28, 2022 08:33
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in
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Dec 28, 2022 08:52
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in and hellrule
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Dec 28, 2022 09:41
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BeefSupreme posted:in and hellrule Your story is told solely in gestures
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Dec 28, 2022 10:19
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in hellrule
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Dec 28, 2022 16:14
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In
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Dec 28, 2022 17:55
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Idle Amalgam posted:in hellrule Your story does not contain the word "the".
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Dec 28, 2022 19:49
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quick question, how do judges normally confer?
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Dec 29, 2022 00:47
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Discord chat is probably most common, or SA private messages.
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Dec 29, 2022 00:54
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I'm in! Willing to trade critiques before Sunday.
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Dec 29, 2022 04:45
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In. I love Thunderdome, and hope every week that a hundred people enter. Unfortunately, the reason I find myself not entering is the same reason that Thunderdome is the best fiction contest on the entire internet: the high quality of the writing. You ever read the stories posted to different subreddits? The best of them would DQ here. Amateur internet writing is often bad, but here, it's usually good. I often sign up but then realize I don't have a story worthy of TD's high standards. I don't know a solution.
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Dec 29, 2022 22:47
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Albatrossy_Rodent posted:In.  imoin
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Dec 29, 2022 23:20
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Albatrossy_Rodent posted:...TD's high standards. Lmao
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Dec 29, 2022 23:32
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Crits for Week #542 Part 2 Crits done in judgemode -- stories may be in a different order than how they were posted. Chasing Cars: You spent a lot of time on backstory and the Northern Lights interaction, and then had maybe half your wordcount left for what seemed to be your actual intended story (pharmaceutical company kidnapping people to experiment on). Also another story with violence/death as a stand-in for a satisfying ending. I think you were trying to use the beginning as a "show don't tell" illustration of the cousins' relationship, but I don't feel it worked particularly well, and you immediately undermined it by doing a whole lot of telling about the cousins' relationship. It could maybe work in a longer piece, but I think this was a time to kill your darlings and try to find space for the story you seem to want to tell. Going forward, I think that my big piece of advice would be to do a few ruthless editing passes when you have a limited wordcount like this, and to really narrow the scope of what you want to show. For me it's been helpful to think about starting at the ending when writing flash, and to try to work in context to the action so I don't have to waste words on setup before I get to the part that actually matters to me. Of course, if your intent was to tell a story about the cousins' relationship, I would probably pick a less complicated scenario to show it in, but assuming you wanted action as your center, it would be better to give that as many words as you can. yesterday's snow: Okay, first off: gently caress you for getting Ho Ho Ho It's Christmastime stuck in my head. You knew what you were doing, you bastard. I think this also suffers from a similar issue to kaom's story in that this is a scene without context. There are hints at why Tim is doing what he's doing, but nothing is explicit, and instead of making the events of the story meaningful, they just make the whole thing more sad and pathetic. I don't know. I'm not sure what's going on with Tim or how this is a product of his character, or what effect this will have on him exactly, but this all just seems to be a "dude goes crazy for no reason, makes people sing a bad goon song, lol (?). You haven't given me any reason to care about this happening, so it's just a psychotic break played for laughs (I guess?), which sucks. It made me think of the Dr. Demento classic They're Coming to Take Me Away, except without the reveal at the end (and even that song isn't very good, imo). The Gift that Will Keep on Giving: I think that this is a good example of the difference between "something happening" and a satisfying story. On the surface, yes, a story is about an exciting and dramatic event taking place, but it's also about change, and exploring both why that change happens and what it means going forward. And while your story has things happening and there is change, the problem is that it doesn't feel like it matters. Which is weird to say about a tale of parental estrangement, mental illness, and suicide! But sad things happen all the time, and we don't stop and have a moment of poignancy over every single one of them. Why is that? Because unless we have something to relate to, or some reason to care about this story in particular, bad things are just bad things. What you have here is so cut-and-dry it almost reads like a news article, and since there's no shortage of sad news articles that also happen to be real, this wasn't a very effective story. I know TD likes to push the "character wants thing -> can't have thing -> works to achieve thing" but for whatever reason that's never really clicked for me, so I'm going to recommend thinking about it more as "here's something that happened, and here's how it changes the people involved." Maybe that involves a character wanting something and achieving/not achieving it, maybe it involves something totally out of their control happening and how they react to it, but I should know who this character is going into this scene, what the scene represents to them and their life, and then what this scene means for them moving forward. Maybe it's big, maybe it's small, but I want to care about and have a pretty good idea of the outcome. So, that all having been said, why did that not happen here specifically? I think it has to do at least in part with your choice of main character: this story follows Daniel, but it seems like it's really about his daughter. She's the one who receives the gift, she's the one whose relationships are in question, she's the one who her mother is trying to connect with, and she's ultimately the one who is most impacted by the events of the story. And yet, she's off-camera (so to speak) for almost the entire story, and I don't really have any idea how she feels about any of what's happening. Daniel doesn't really seem to do much in the story expect be kind of curious and answer the door several times. Any action or emotion isn't "seen," so it's hard to relate to as a reader. Show me the emotion/action, don't just imply that it happens elsewhere! Alright sorry, this has probably gone on long enough. Hopefully this was at least a little helpful! The First Christmas After: It feels more than a little unfair to ding this for being scattered, just because, yeah, you used a ton of flash rules, and given the number of disparate elements that you were pulling together, I think it works really well, especially the gravity metaphor. That having been said, it didn't quite land for me emotionally. It was good, and the elements were there, but I guess I didn't have enough personal investment into the story. It reminded me of nothing so much as when I'm just miserable for reasons out of my control and can't do anything about. I know I'm unhappy, but expressing it seems pointless because there's not really anything anyone can do about it, including me. And that really sucks, and is a relatable feeling, but it doesn't feel like a very satisfying narrative. That's not to say that I think that this wasn't a story worth telling, just that it didn't really hit home for me. Sorry, I'm not sure how helpful that is. :/
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Dec 30, 2022 00:06
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 17:58 |
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I wish I could have participated more this year, but such is life and such is life for the next six months. After that I'll be subjecting you all to my awful writing once more. I think kayfabe in TD is sort of a ship that has sailed. I think it works well when we're all largely anonymous screen names that might be people or might be electrical phenomena, but as the 'dome has matured that sense of anonymity has given way to community and now we actually care about the lives and feelings of the people we're interacting with. Maybe a once-or-twice-a-year kayfabe enabled contest? As for avatars, I can also see how some people are really attached to theirs and getting the loser-tar can sting a little. Especially if gambling $20/month (assuming an entry a week) might be the difference between paying a bill or having a couple day's worth of food. But it's worth recognizing why the loser-tar exists--to stop people from dropping a lovely, low-effort story and expecting judges to give them serious crit in return. From what I understand of old 'dome history, the loser-tar is there to add just a tiny bit of stakes so that people try their best. The loser-tar has also served as sort of a sandwich-board advertising method that losers have to wear around the forums and point gawkers/entrants back to this thread. And that sort of segues into a change in judging style I've noticed over the past few years, where Losses are more likely to be given to a story where the writer tried hard but took some risks and stepped outside their comfort zone. DM's have become the place where judges drop stories that might have traditionally been "losers." I'm generally inclined to like the idea of failure-tars instead of loser-tars these days, since even most losers are deserving of the time it takes me to write the crit. I'd also be of a mind to hand out a shame avatar for DQ's instead of a failure--something that was so bad that it made me irritated that I had to write criticism of it. Weltlich fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Dec 30, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2022 00:11
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