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In with week #531 - Monsters in the Margins I'm going to write about these jolly fellows: https://twitter.com/WeirdMedieval/status/1595505797370417154?t=6FFJhaUFbEFa6umaddBkBg&s=19
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Nov 30, 2022 15:59
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 10:43 |
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The Pure Joy of Noise 907 words “Do you ever miss it?” Atticus asked, stretched out across the grass, his furry belly warming in the sun. “What? Oh,” Cato replied from the branches above, where he was preening his feathers. “No… no, I don’t think so. It was quite stressful, running around all the time and arguing with other politicians. Nowadays I don’t move unless I want to grab a bite to eat, and just have pleasant conversations. I missed it at first though.” “What are we talking about?” Julius asked as he trotted out of the forest, Maximus hopping a few paces behind him. “Whether we miss being human,” Cato replied. “I don’t think I do. Life is much more peaceful now.” “Why bother asking? It’s not like we can do anything about it,” Maximus said grumpily. “Whether we miss it or not, we can’t change back.” “I miss eating cooked food,” Julius replied, ignoring his small companion. “At least, I think I do. Honestly I’ve grown quite accustomed to roots and acorns, but a nice cena of oysters… I miss that.” “I miss women,” said Maximus. “Women and wine, preferably together.” “I wouldn’t mind having a library to read, I suppose,” said Cato in turn, and he twisted his head to look back at Atticus. “What about you, friend? What brought on this line of questioning?” Atticus sat up and shrugged. "Oh, it's nothing, I was just… Well, do you promise not to laugh?" "No," replied Maximus quickly. "Hush, you little bastard," snorted Julius. "Go on, brown, what's ailing you?" "I miss playing the lute." The three companions stared at Atticus, clearly waiting for something more. There wasn’t. “You mean, being a musician, performing in front of others?” asked Cato. “Or having admirers fall over themselves to talk to you afterwards?” asked Maximus. “No, not like that,” Atticus replied. “Just… the act of playing the lute. Making beautiful noises, just for myself. That’s what I miss.” “What’s stopping you?” asked Julius. “Are you kidding?” Atticus held up his big furry paws, ending in his long claws. “Well, yes, obviously,” Julius replied. “You’ll never win the Actian games, but you said you just wanted to pay for yourself. So why not? You can hold the lute, and you’ve got fingers to play, don't you?” The four companions sat in silence for a moment, and then as one broke into a hurried run to their ship, abandoned and ran aground. Cato flew in gentle circles around the mast, watching as Atticus pried the latch of his locker open. Soon enough, he had his prize grasped gently in his jaw - his lute, old and properly out of tune, but nonetheless intact. Soon enough he had everything arranged - the lute sitting awkwardly on his lap, sheet music arranged on a nearby tree stump, his friends watching nearby. The instrument didn’t sit comfortable in his paws, and the lack of thumbs made it awkward to keep it in place… but Atticus played the first few notes of some old song, and it seemed like the whole world stood still. His companions held their breath and stayed perfectly still as their friend plucked out one muted, warbling, halting note after the other. The tempo was off and the strings buzzed, the melody so distorted that none of them could tell what song he was playing. But still! It was unmistakable, the sound of music echoing across the clearing. “This is stupid,” Atticus cried suddenly, pushing the lute to the ground and turning away. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! A bear can’t play the lute! STUPID!” “Why did you stop? Keep playing!” shouted Maximus as he leapt onto his shoulder. “Come on! You can’t just stop like that, I was listening to that!” “Oh, leave me alone, you dumb hare. You heard how bad that sounded, don’t lie to me!” “It was admittedly a little rough,” said Cato carefully, as he flapped around to stand in front of Atticus. “But you just need to practice a bit more, that’s all. With time and practice, a man-” “But I’m not a man! I’m a bear! I could practice for a million years, and I still wouldn’t be playing it right!” “Who cares?” shouted Julius, stamping his hoof on the ground. “I thought you just wanted to make some beautiful music for yourself and no one else. Why do you care if it’s right?” “Because I’m just making a bunch of noise, okay? It’s just noise!” sobbed Atticus, as he buried his snout in his paws. “Isn’t that what music is? A bunch of beautiful noises?” she said. There she stood, beautiful Circe the Enchantress, cruel Circe the Temptress, the goddess who had transformed them. She walked into the clearing, picked up the lute, and gently set it back in Atticus’ paws. “Ah, that joyful sound! Won’t you please play for me a little bit more, little bear?” She gently scratched behind his ears and waited for him to nod in agreement. Then she picked up Maximus and held the hare in her lap as she sat down to listen. “Okay, well…” Atticus started, a bit hesitant. “This is a song my grandfather taught me when I was a little boy, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Here we go…” And slowly, but with increasing confidence, he began to make a beautiful noise that filled the clearing and the spaces between the trees late into the night, as his strange audience listened enraptured. 
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Dec 5, 2022 06:22
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Thunderdome Week #540: Intriguing Fantasy The Spire is a TTRPG about drow revolutionaries caught up in a secret war against the high elves who rule the towering city of Spire. The world of Spire is a brutal one on the brink of full-scale rebellion, and poised to be pushed over the edge. The city itself is a mile-high impossible tower, older than anyone can remember. Two hundred years ago, the high elves took it from the drow by force. Now, they graciously allow drow to live in the city if they perform four years of service to a high elf lord once they come of age. Spire is crumbling from within and without; it is ancient, and has been built and rebuilt countless times, and at the center of the mass there is a jagged, weeping hole in reality called the Heart. It is a place of gods, and magic: there are preachers on every street corner and demonologists hiding behind the facades of research universities; and in the depths of the city, where space and time fear to tread, there are sects of magicians who have given themselves to a huge and alien intelligence, filling their bodies with sacred bees and turning their organs to wax simulacra. I have been enjoying it immensely. I want stories about intrigue and fantasy, wizards and espionage, stories that are equally at home on the Thriller and Fantasy shelves. I don't want you to write about Spire necessarily, although you're certainly free to draw inspiration from it. Anything full of fantasy and intrigue will do - a locked door mystery in Asgard, the wonderful wizarding world of union corruption, a hardboiled detective on the case of a missing princess, whatever. To give you extra room to establish your setting and your plot, the word count limit is 2,000 words but don't feel obligated to use them all. This is still a flash fiction contest, after all. Sign-ups close Saturday 8:00AM EST (when I wake up in the morning) Entries close Monday, 8:00AM EST (when I wake up in the morning) Judges: Tibalt Albatrossy_Rodent ? Entrants: Bad Seafood Chernobyl Princess Something Else Idle Amalgam Sitting Here Thranguy Tibalt fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Dec 10, 2022 |
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Dec 6, 2022 15:20
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I'm still looking for one or two more judges to help me out this week. If you're a bystander or thread lurker who feels a bit shy about participating this week, please, come help me judge! It's very easy and fun to do! Here, let me show you: Week 538 Crits: Kuiperdolin You had 750 words and 24 hours to spare, and I feel you could have made use of both. Setting that aside, judging this story as a piece of microfiction, I didn't like it. When writing microfiction you need to be very careful and precise with your language to justify the conceit, otherwise you should just take the words you need and write a piece of flash fiction. I had to read the story a few times to understand what you were trying to do, and I didn't feel rewarded for the effort. Also the Cimon/Simon typo was particularly unfortunate. Rohan A pretty conservative take on the prompt, with the protagonist being sent on an actual snipe hunt. I appreciate the attempt at building up the world, but the opening comes off less as organic storytelling and more as exposition. Having said that, I found the story endearing and the protagonist likeable, which made this overall an enjoyable piece. Idle Amalgam This story didn't grab me. I feel like it lingered and sped past the wrong moments, in a way that really dulled the impact of the surprise twist. In particular, I feel like you should have spent more time on Billy in his own bed, debating whether he really believed in a monster under the bed. The story never gave me space to believe the monster wasn't real, and so I wasn't shocked when the monster did show up. Chili I like the plot, but not the execution. 5 scene breaks in a thousand words feels a bit excessive, and I think you could have more smoothly transitioned between at least two of them. Jehran, Olkin, and Bluth are likeable characters, and you conveyed the disdain for King Horace very efficiently. A fun story, if a bit structurally unsound. QuoProQuid A tasty little morsel, but left me wanting a bit more at the end of it. It feels like you ran out of words before you ran out of story, and while you managed to tie everything together in a neat bow it doesn't quite satisfy. Still, I enjoyed the story a lot, especially the descriptions and details. Hard Counter I didn't enjoy this one, but I don't think it's your fault. As someone who was diagnosed as autistic as an adult and has struggled with the same sort of issues as Kevin, the story landed a bit sour and inauthentic to me, especially coming from Josh's perspective. In perhaps more helpful advice, I think you could have spent less time in Josh's head and more time letting the reader see what he was seeing from Kevin in the moment. Also, the media res beginning felt clunky and unnecessary. Thranguy I like this one a lot, especially in the way it utilizes the prompt. I'm not sure what The Clips are, or whether it was a real conspiracy theory that people tried to hunt down, but it doesn't matter. It feels real, and the story isn't about The Clips anyway. The result is poignant, and I'm not sure what else I would change about it beyond giving Sondra more of a presence. Chernobyl Princess Cute! A little anemic, but cute. I feel a bit more exploration of the octopus civilization would have been a good use of words, and the transition from the mother's very real panic to the octopus city was very abrupt, but still... cute story. I enjoyed it. The way you conveyed a parent's terror at the thought of something going wrong felt both efficient and effective, and I loved the idea.
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Dec 9, 2022 04:27
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Sign ups are closed! But if you're still looking to participate, there's a judge spot still open...
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Dec 10, 2022 14:23
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Good morning! I'm awake which means Submissions are closed!
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Dec 12, 2022 14:17
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Judgement - Week #540 A very interesting week, and one that I am personally quite happy with the offerings. Albatrossy_Rodent and I had very different opinions of which pieces we liked and disliked, which will hopefully be clear when we post our crits. The gap between best and worst was so small, and disagreement between which one we'd consider best and worst was so large, that it doesn't really fair to declare someone a loser. (Boo! Boo! Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!) We agreed on our third place story, but giving the loser title to someone standing on the podium feels like some bullshit to me, so I won't. We did agree on something though! Congratulations to our winner: Chernobyl Princess - Free Magic
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Dec 12, 2022 19:42
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 10:43 |
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Critiques: The Burning One by Something Else - B This story was the most divisive between AR and I, and I ranked it lowest for the week despite mostly enjoying the story. I love your pissy little demon protagonist, his loathsome nature, and the disgusting world he calls home. There is an element of patheticness to the pulp detective that is so vital to making them work as a protagonist that you capture. Melphius fits in wonderfully with Harry Du Bois, Meyer Landsman, and Harvey Keitel’s Lieutenant, as a mean drunk and a bastard hiding what remains of his heart and soul. I genuinely mean it when I say that I want more of Mel. Unfortunately, you let the piss drunk joke go on a little bit too long, to the detriment of the story. Towards the end it was feeling repetitive, like a setup that had gone on too long and was getting in the way of the next beat. The language being used also contributed to this - I think you need to be more inventive in how you described it, and the swearing and piss jokes started to feel stale. There was a sense of ‘yeah, we get it, now what?’ Either watching Mel get and be drunk needed to be more innately rewarding, or the story needed to move on from it. I didn’t like the ending, nor the fake out. In terms of personal taste and accommodating the prompt, swerving away from the mystery and refusing to engage with it is a little disappointing and unfulfilling. I really did want to know more about the dead doctor, the bloody thumbprint, and the missing memento. Setting up a mystery like that two thirds of the way through, just to ignore it, doesn’t match what I was looking for or expecting. I think you could go that route still, but there needed to be more connective tissue between the ending and the rest of the story. The little hints of Mel’s relationship with Gorgalon could have worked for that purpose if they had been expanded - Gorgalon’s death being the final straw that truly breaks Mel, perhaps. But my advice would be to focus more on building a through line between the cosmology you’ve created and Mel’s rejection of the call, either through Mel’s wartime experience or the temporary nature of demon death. I needed something to make Mel getting drunk and telling everyone to leave him alone feel like a closing note or a fair demand towards the reader, to justify the journey we took to get there. As a tale of fantasy, I very much enjoy your world of loathsome and irreverent demons. The rapid switch between names like “Torbolax” and “Rotten Ronny” for the archdemons of the high council is very amusing to me, along with Melbius the Burning One being a miserable imp and Maggot Bob the put-upon publican. The poo poo, piss, swears, and fart jokes got a little thin, and I would have focused more energy on describing and bringing to life the unpleasant characters instead. Your description of Maggot Bob in particular created a vivid image and a well-rounded character in my mind, despite him being a giant maggot with greasy hair and human arms grafted onto him. A bit more of that for Torbolax or the city itself would be great. Storyweaver by Bad Seafood - B+ I don’t think you’d be surprised to hear that I really enjoyed the first half of this story, but felt a little meh in the second half. I really enjoyed the setup with Anuman and Temny, particularly the story of the drowning of the sea. Introducing Temny’s magical abilities and the extent of her capabilities with a vivid and engrossing story was great. This is the start of a truly great story. My main critiques of the first half would focus on the lack of grounding and reinforcement of the fantastic elements to the story. There were a lot of details that were quickly and obliquely mentioned that I didn’t catch until a second, closer reading - the proprietor’s multiple eyes was something I missed completely, for example, and could have helped set me in the correct mindset for the story. In particular from my first reading, I didn’t pick up on Anuman’s noble bearing and clothing, nor on the fact that Temny was literally made of shadows. A second, well-placed sentence highlighting each of those elements would have done wonders, I think. The second half of the story is fine and serviceable, and really isn’t bad. But it does feel like it’s underutilizing the setup that you built. The key element I think you’re missing is a characterization and personality from your protagonists - there’s a lot of doing, but I don’t get a lot of feeling from Anuman and Temny. I think developing and deepening their new relationship during the action of the heist would also be good. The other missed opportunity is with Preem, the unseen antagonist. Revealing more of the relationship between Anuman and Preem would be great, and helped give stakes to the action. Another opportunity would be putting Preem’s personality on display, either directly as an onscreen antagonist or indirectly through the description of the inside of the auction house. How luxurious are the pillows, how professional are the guards? My final complaint about the story (and it’s a small one) was the lack of intrigue. Nobody is really lying to each other, or withholding information, or trying to figure something out. It’s all out in the metaphorical open. A bit more of impersonation and bluffing would have helped meet the prompt. Motes by Thranguy - A The second most divisive story between AR and I, one that I initially enjoyed and ranked highly. However, after repeated in-depth readings, I've come down on it a little. At first I got a strong Planescape/Starjammer vibe from the story, but on second glance I realized that the oblique references don't inherently build towards that idea. It just happened to feel that way to me - it could just as easily read as half dozen other high fantasy setting. I still enjoy the story a lot, but I think it would be stronger with a more focused idea of the setting. The main issue I have with the characters is that Ibra and Narm are blank slates, with only glancing references to their inner depth. An implied motive and backstory can work, but this takes it to a direction that is a little too extreme. We don’t get a sense of why these characters are in the Citadel, what they want or who they serve, whether they are spies, thieves, or assassins. We don't describe much about the characters, the hints at their personality are narrow and vague, and while we get a general sense of their relationship, it’s very lacking. A bit more meat on the bones, either in who they are or what motivates them, would fill out this story a lot. I have two smaller issues as well. First, even with the lampshade, the mid-fight exposition feels clunky and I think you could have done it better. There’s a lot of words spent on conveying the idea that gemstone dustmen are dangerous, and expanding on it just draws attention to the fact that Narm has an inconsistent understanding of them. Why does Narm know that dustmen can ‘peel brains’ and are dangerous, but doesn’t know why? I like the lines "Do you always prefer to be educated in the middle of a fight?" “Only way I ever learn" but I don’t think it justifies the section. The second issue is the shift to close third after the Sapphire appears. The story so far has been told in third-person objective with emotions conveyed through scowls and gestures, so the short hop inside Narm’s thoughts feels weird. It also felt weird for Narm to know that he needed to burn Ibra’s bag or that Sahil’s vow would protect his partner, but both aspects are set up enough that I’m fine with it. A firmer decision on who should be the main protagonist, Ibra or Narm, would make the story flow better, but this is a pretty small complaint. Free magic by Chernobyl Princess - A+ Of all the stories this week, this one most closely captured the prompt. Obviously I wasn't expecting everyone to write stories about spies and revolutionaries, but I'm glad you did. The central driving conflict of this society is conveyed wonderfully by the phrase "the Thaumaturgists rationed magic like bread in a famine." I enjoyed the complicated, ambiguous relationship between Imelda and Soren. I'm a sucker for romantic tension, especially when the author lets it reside in the subtext instead of telling us outright. The offhand notice of Soren's form (and her reaction to his arrest) certainly did the trick, although the familiar way they talked towards each other was a bit at odds with the idea that Imelda was working with strangers and new comrades. The ending is fine, but I think you could make it a little bit stronger. There's a few hints towards the twist that I appreciated on a second reading, but I think you could have leaned into it more. The rapid fire introduction of three new characters in the final moment didn't feel great and contributed to the abrupt feeling. I think you could have merged Misha and Johan characters, at least, and perhaps merged all three into just Hulda - she was introduced earlier in the story. Finally, I think the ending could have used more resolution. A glimpse at Imelda's feelings at the true plan or her realization about what it meant would have helped give the story closure.
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Dec 13, 2022 04:07
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