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Apr 4, 2023 05:46
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Twenty-Eight 976 Words There are twenty-nine telepaths on the planet. My Dad is one. We’re traveling to kill one of the others. This would be easy if Alec lived in the outskirts of anywhere. We’re in the suburbs of Cincinnati, and the streets curve and kink down long stacks of single-family homes. Dad can only point in the compass direction, as the psychic crow flies. There’s no way to say how close we are, and no broad avenue to triangulate down. Its causing Dad a lot of pain. Like pressing closer and closer to a puncture wound. Uncle Alec has advanced dementia. Twenty-nine minds get to share the pain. “He gave us an address,” Dad says. He has his eyes squeezed shut. He has already apologized for Alec many times. “He said he’d leave the lights on and the door unlocked. No clue who moved him.” “It doesn’t matter,” I say, again. I turn left, towards Dad’s outstretched finger, and the road immediately kinks back to the east. More two-story colonials in beige paint tones roll by. Dad hisses. He’s already plugged his nose with hotel toilet paper, but blood is nonetheless seeping through. I pull the car over. “Dad–” I start, but his eyes open, and, as the son of a telepath, I recognize when its someone else behind his eyes. “Y-yellow,” he says, and slumps against the passenger side. Blood speckles the door handle. Our rental deposit is in real danger. My own gifts lie elsewhere. I liked Dad’s. He can speak some twenty languages, shunting vocabulary from twenty-eight other minds. Few of the others had kids, and they liked my brother and I. Aunt Janet would babysit all the time, joking in poor English about how big and fat Dad’s body was, while he jogged her form up and down the Seine. We had a Dad and twenty-eight Aunts and Uncles. Including Uncle Alec. If you aren’t raised by a quasi-hive mind its hard to say exactly how I know Dad is back. Something about how he sets his shoulders, gnaws his lip. He notices his shirt, how blood-stained it is. “Aw. drat it. They won’t let me on the plane like this.” “You didn’t pack a single other shirt?” I say. “A backup shirt! Dumb concept,” Dad grouses. This is much more Dad. He goes borrowing too often to care about appearances. The Aunts complain about this. They say when they get back the neighbors ask why they were bicycling in pajama pants and a button-down. “Alec said something was yellow,” I say. I’m not sure if he remembers it. Generally he does – the memories get stored in his local-copy brain, regardless of who is inhabiting it. But who knows how it works with a man suffering from advanced dementia. “I don’t know. And, you know. It’s a primary color. Doesn’t knock it down. Could be the color of his socks.” “It isn’t,” Dad says, unusually terse, and I know where and who he’s been. We retreat and enlist two Aunts with engineering expertise. I drive in a twenty-mile circle while Dad points. Eventually Aunt Charlotte just takes over, exasperated, and takes notes with Dad’s fingers. “Here,” she says, with Dad’s voice, handing over Dad’s phone. “Dead reckoned. I’m trading back. I don’t know how Oliver manages, this close to Alec. Its like waking in a tomb.” I always know when it’s him. They all sound different, my many relations, my father. My brother needled him once about it – what if he was just a long-term resident, a cuckoo of a Dad? He’d said no one else with an option would stick with two ugly, fat children, and then he’d wrecked us with thrown pillows. There is a bright yellow fire hydrant on the street Aunt Charlotte pinned. Its the only one in garish neon. We’ve passed several in unobtrusive matte-brick red. Some sort of paint regime change at the fire department. The ride has been fast but very tense – Dad is really struggling. Uncle Alec is dying, inside of his head. Alec tried to keep it secret from the others, which is how they knew he had developed dementia. He needs to die in a specific and safe way. “Okay, okay Dad, you did it,” I said, soothing. He managed to point at one of the beige-built homes. I deposited him at a park, miles away. His seat was runny with red streaks. Dad had been the obvious choice to do it – the hive’s fitness nut, he paid for babysitting and other assists by whipping foreign bodies into better shape. Living through the exhausted frustration of their bodies. He was in the best shape to survive what was needed. I’d volunteered. I owed him, and the Aunts and Uncles, and I owed Uncle Alec. I went around back and let myself in. He was in a side bedroom, under a yellow sheet. “Uncle Alec,” I said. He was not that old, and had long black-gray hair. I knew he wore glasses – he would check for them while prepping me for English tests. Press his hand on Dad’s nose. “Uncle Alec. It’s William.” “William… William…” he said. I put a needle in his withered arm. He’d been very serious, very much so, but he’d laughed Dad’s lungs hoarse when he realized I didn’t know what “gestalt” meant. Laughed and laughed. And I had too. I waited until he was asleep, and then gone. A safe, single death. Dad was fine when I got back to him. He’d turned his shirt inside out, to hide the bloodstains. There was a pullup bar nearby, and there was a good chance he’d done a few, just to feel himself again. He grinned, then remembered he shouldn’t. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not gonna ask you to do that to me.” “You already did.” I said.
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Apr 9, 2023 05:58
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Apr 19, 2023 17:36
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Old Pavlova By Copernic 1477 Words 1879: “Perhaps the ring is inside of the turtle,” Jenna said. She had put on lace gloves to handle it. “You know they can live for hundreds of years.” “Oh, very exceptionally wonderful,” Eloise said. Robert had handed her a wrapped box. Inside, the turtle – now her turtle – had already worked its way through a handful of strawberries. She would’ve preferred the strawberries. “Yes. Immortal. And science has a lot of interesting things to say about the shell. Culturally, the symbolism is very dense,” Jenna was unsure how encouraging to be. The turtle had turned its hungry attention to the ribbon. “Robert even named him,” Eloise said, and sighed. “Or her. Atlas. He or she or it can hold up the very earth. Robert said.” 1932: They’d clothed the turtle in mourning. The lawyer had explained – this was in the will. Eloise had provided for her most faithful heir. Also in the will, a sterling silver bowl filled with the finest strawberries, so Atlas was not bored during the reading. Clarissa stared at the turtle as the reading commenced. The other grandnieces and grandnephews received land grants and monetary awards, coupled with wry remarks on their personal character from beyond the grave. The others poorly hid their smirks. Clarissa had inherited the Eloise beak and scathing wit. She had inherited the soul of a spinster. They all thought. Eloise had thought. “And to Clarissa… a sum of $150,000 per annum… provided…for the life of…” Clarissa rose, and threw her black veil at the dozing chelonian. “I won’t take the loving turtle!” 1976 “There’s names on the turtle,” Det. Leonard said. Aware that he sounded stupid, he held it up, using both hands. Eloise, Clarissa, Lauren, painted in long-lasting enamel on the pentagonal edges. “Not the killer’s name, probably,” Det. Rogers said. “I mean, that’s Lauren.” She pointed to the outline. The body had been removed. It was a half-hearted effort – Lauren had died on top of empty McDonald’s cartons, her legs propped up on a sofa. The turtle had retracted its head, unhappy about the police, or, more likely, the light and the noise. “There’s no turtle pen. No– you know – lettuce. Or fruit. Or a Water bottle. Turtle care stuff,” Det. Leonard persisted. He seemed to want Rogers to take possession of the animal, but she’d already washed her hands a number of times. This was a messy one. “Are you suggesting the killer,” Det. Rogers considered her words. “FORGOT their turtle here? Are you suggesting that the turtle is a CLUE?” “It’s at the very least a lead,” Det. Leonard insisted. 2023 #strawberries DatingSlime: strawberry strawberry strawberry CumDoctor: yessss StintRack: not time yet! Datingslime: feed it feed it CumDoctor: get atlas on twitch StintRack: no DatingSlime: atlas onlyfans StintRack: NO. CumDoctor: rule 34 atlas the turtle Datingslime: lol geriatric category. CumDoctor: hahaha StintRack: guys just so you know… StintRack: atlas has not been very hungry lately so… StintRack: might not go for it today CumDoctor: wait CumDoctor: what? 2241 Nanoblades had a distinct odor. The polluted ozone stink clung to the clothes of owners. Mai had the usual set of mal-drones watching her back, a full panoply of visual spectra under AI review. And yet, simple, human, sense of smell saved her, not for the first time. She dipped right. Her borne-in muscles ached as more recently installed fibers did the work.. The blade passed just beneath her nose. Small machines leapt off the blade, and her denial field had to activate against them. Mai had bought herself two and a half seconds. Digital assistants broadly recommended drawing her own blades. Instead she reached into her pack – she found it helped resolve situations to have the payload in view. The turtle looked grumpy. She’d only had dried strawberries. Far Distant: “There’s still room,” Kein insisted. Their living canvas ate seaweed, between naps. “Look. Inside other names.” She traced inside some of the oldest names. Owners had to have retraced the lines, in many materials, and in many colors. “Eloise” was in some alloy that defied the elder’s best efforts to name, much less extract. “I don’t want that,” Reeth insisted. “It’ll just be– misspelled. Erleoe– I can’t even say it.” “How about this – binary code, along the bottom edge. You’ll be like a secret code.” The waves lapped at Mauna Kea. They’d cut a tree down to have a fire for the celebration. Kein touched a trio of red berries, drawn on the tip of the shell. “Do you really think we can grow these?” Reeth said. 2241: “Are you really opening negotiations?” her attacker said. It used some sort of voice modulation – an affectation for a killer. It made it hard to tell if they were being sarcastic or not. “Do you think its ever been sold?” Mai said. She admired the interlocking names on the back of the shell. There were over a hundred. Automatic processing logged two dozen languages. “I took it. You’ll take it. Do you think it has ever been just – pieces of eight? Gold for tortoise?” “You think its a stupid thing to fight over?” her attacker said, pointedly. “A turtle?” The blade purred. Whoever was most willing to die usually won. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” Mai said. She shook her head. “Not at all. The opposite.” She had a kill solution ready. She tossed the turtle up in the air. Six second flight time, more than enough. 2023 StintRack: its old.. idk StintRack: its probably nothing CumDoctor: can you take atlas to turtle vet DatingSlime: yeah turtle vet! StintRack: I don’t have the money DatingSlime: we’ll venmo you. CumDoctor: YES. lets get #general in on this. CumDoctor: atlas deserves the best! DatingSlime: custom discord role, Order of Strawberries StintRock: look, if you guys are handing out money… DatingSlime: no. look… i’m doing this for ME. DatingSlime: and atlas. DatingSlime: atlas strawberries are my touching grass. CumDoctor: yeah DatingSlime: atlas is all the grass i’ve got. 1976: The murder was never solved. No – Rogers reminded herself. She was not going to be a passive voice cop. She’d never solved it. She’d kept the turtle as a memento of her own failure. It was named Atlas. Her investigation had found out exactly that much – a turtle’s name. In its role as a good luck charm Atlas had even been present for the big bust at Market and 7th, when a wild spray of bullets punctured her Datsun. She’d told herself: Atlas was armored. More bulletproof than she turned out to be. After a forced retirement a friend brought over a gift – strawberries. “Turtles love strawberries!” she said, and Atlas immediately hauled shell over to them. Det. Rogers stared at it, lost in memory. Had there been a suspect, back then, with a pint of strawberries in the fridge? She felt the faint edge of a memory… But she was just a short-lived human. That night she added her name to the shell. And a few cartoon berries. 1932: The legal battle consumed many years and the bulk of the fortune. In the end the State Supreme Court established that the corpus of a turtle could not be tied to a life estate. The lawyers on both sides went out for drinks. Clarissa had been sternly warned by her attorneys to care for the turtle. Destruction of evidence was fatal to the case, and independently forbidden. So she did. Atlas lived in the garage, in a box, and ate spoil. After the trial she had big plans for turtle soup. But by then the kids were old enough to intervene. It was easier to stare at the animal and assign it blame. She surprised herself when her oldest asked for the thing. Lauren wanted to go west, and seek her fortune, and felt a small turtle should accompany her. “No,” Clarissa had said. Very simply. “Do I at least get it in the will?” Lauren said. Clarissa had no response to that. Her daughter had picked it up, walked away, and Clarissa was two souls poorer. 1879: Eloise kept the turtle. She did try to release it – brought the spheroid down to the river, right on the bank, and waited for it to slip into the waters. To disappear from sight and mind. Along with it would go Robert, the strawberries, and two years of waiting, in vain, for a proposal. The turtle did not move, at all. It wasn’t withdrawn, just immobile, staring at the flow of the water. Like it could do it forever. So she brought it back. There was something about what Jenna had said – about immortality. The eternal turtle. To touch the shell was to commune with something very far and very distant. And Atlas was a little cute. A little. She wrote her name on its carapace.
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Apr 23, 2023 04:20
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Week 560 Young Hello from Disneyland. Its so easy to be overwhelmed here, and especially so if you sit and watch all the families go by. What's going to happen with all these many kids, including my own? Should I, at any given second, be looking to their future, holding on to the moment, or making memories of the past? Look at someone with sixty-seventy years to go. How to feel about that? Envious? Hopeful? Pity? In these stories we often cram as much of our own anxieties and regrets as we can into one single, small package. So how appropriate that this week we are writing about children. Your kids, someone else's kids, yourself as a kid. You get 1000 words. 500 more if you take a flash rule. I will assign you a classic children's book to work in... thematically. Signups are due by Friday, April 28, 11:59pm PDT. Submissions are due by Sunday, April 30, 11:59pm PDT. I have never judged before and appreciate any tips. Judges: copernic chernobyl princess Entrants: flerp chili violet_sky thranguy [flash: GOODNIGHT MOON] admiralty flag archduke.iago Copernic fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Apr 29, 2023 |
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Apr 25, 2023 00:54
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Thranguy posted:In and flash. your book is GOODNIGHT MOON.
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Apr 25, 2023 04:26
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Crits Ah, rolling out of bed to wrangle too many kids. It must be every day. Admiralty Flag / A Lovely Light A sad story that flirts with being saccharine, but never falls entirely over into it. This reads like an affecting reddit post on /r/daddit. Although a meaningful, compassionate view of a post-divorce Dad I wanted more out of it, in that it simply does a good job following a familiar set of story beats. I knew from the start that the daughter bringing up the divorce was coming at the three quarter mark, and it did. 3.5/5. Flerp / Talking In The Back I didn't get much out of this dialogue-based story. Its certainly a believable version of those meandering, inconclusive talks you get with kids, but, also, so what. I get the idea -- the narrator is struggling with his own mixed emotions, correctly observed by the infante. But also, I didn't have much of a reason to care. The niece herself comes across as more of a device than a character, and the dialog itself doesn't spark any real emotion. I don't think there's enough juice to this story where nothing happens. 2/5. Violet_Sky / Pegasus A clever concept that nails the point of view of an 8 year old kid -- "now what?" Yearning for something but without quite enough wit to understand the pathos of their own situation. Just knowing they want that next birthday that will never come. This left me wanting more. Kid heaven is a little too underdescribed. Cake and sunny days. Surely there's more, and I'm curious to hear about it. Too short to do more but briefly describe their situation... I think a brief story arc would've been appreciated. 4/5. archduke.iago / The Blur I was wondering when we'd get a little magical realism. Its a natural fit with the dream-like atmosphere of childhood, and deployed here with considerable acumen. All these stories have a yearning, aching quality to them, but The Blur especially was a ~story~. I wanted to see what would happen, I wanted to know how it'd go. The prose is evocative and brisk. The ending came on me abruptly, and lacked a subtlety I was expecting, but I have no other real complaints. 4.5/5. Thranguy/ Ollie, Ollie Taking a flash only to use 3 words of it. Bold. This takes awhile to settle in. Early on it flirts with run-on sentences, and I was unsure if we were going for "childlike language" or just long discursive sentences. Either way, I didn't think it worked. But once we move to the moon it turns into something evocative and different. A story about kids that isn't afraid to do something big and moving. Very much in the best tradition of fairy tales -- although I didn't think the wink to 'maybe I'm in one!' added anything. The ending didn't hit with me. A little elder horror, I guess? It felt gimmicky. 4/5. Chili / Someone I Respect A simple story that didn't excite me very much. It reads like a parable you would tell a kid about the importance of friendship, and, although it somewhat subverts that, that doesn't make it much more interesting. I think the issue here is that Wiggler herself is so vaguely drawn that her elementary school power play just doesn't have any impact on me. I didn't really find the Dad to be very convincing. Is that a thing Dads say or did he just need to be the antagonist? I did appreciate that this wasn't a sad sack downer story unlike every other entry. 3/5 Winner: archduke.iago. An entire bag of fruit snacks for you. HM: Thranguy DM: None. Loser: None.
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May 1, 2023 22:55
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Jun 14, 2023 19:17
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Baby’s rear end By Copernic [991 words] “I’m not even one of the HOT brains in a jar,” Mallory said. She had mastered a very teenage-girl skill, Alison thought, of skimming the liminal edge between sobbing and fury. It left her father entirely motionless. “I think you look GREAT,” Daniel said, gesturing towards the open window in the Virtuality. Their view into meatspace. The camera captured the entire family. Three quivering pink brains, dotted with yellow-coated slivers, filaments of red-copper wire rising from a vat of spinal juice. One of the brains was somewhat smaller. Somewhere on the fields of overlapping bar codes was a small logo that read “MALLORY WHITMER”. Sixteen year old Mallory Whitmer, rendered into avatara by powerful circuitry, opted for a long moaning wail. Daniel was a confident and forward-thinking father. This was vital in family cohesion, especially when the family had been degloved and unfleshed and plunked in solution. But it did not leave much room for emotional depth. If she wanted to, Alison could turn her head, and chart those mediocre regions in her husband’s brain. Instead she gave him a nod-off. Mommy would handle this one. Relieved, her partner blinked off, dissolving into a thousand fireflies. “What would be a hot brain? What are the teens saying about this?” Alison said. She started to walk, and was quietly relieved when Mallory came with. “Did you decide this, really?” “Christine says you can already read lobe complexity,” Mallory said, sniffing. “She said her topographical complexity was like the Swiss Alps. She said she has crazy folds.” The boys thought that was really funny, Alison thought. “I’m sure the boys thought that was really funny?” Mallory fought back unreal tears. “Y-yeah,” she said. “They started chanting. Lobes. Lobes. Lobes. And then she LOOKED at me and she just– she shook her head. At me.” Devastating, Alison thought. Christine’s family was just down the rack from them. Six jars, all of them mean brains. “Honey, we were – before. You know, before. We were even then all brains in jars,” Alison tried. They’d given pamphlets to the parents. What were they all, but brains piloting meat machines? Strapped into organs and spackled over with skin. “I— we– we had no choice, so—” She faltered. It was just not coming out. Shook her head. Alison had been that girl. They walked through tall grass. Daniel had placed them in Altimer. It ran a Steampunk setting, and Alison had not liked their new neural neighbors. She could see them, in their own braincases, in the long well-lit racks. A clockwork dragon wove itself through the sky. They both ignored it. “I thought everyone was just going to knit themselves elaborate outfits and better noses,” Alison said, mostly to herself. She gestured, and a light-made pair of sulids flapped into existence. “I thought you’d be blessedly free of my acne. I told myself that.” She ventured to hold her daughter’s hand. Mallory slid it off, lapsing into sullen. And why should that bother her, Alison thought, as much as it did. She would never actually touch Mallory. There was brain water and polycarbonate in the way. They didn’t actually live in a castle covered in gears, full of clocks. It was time for a new tack. The only thing she could come up with was honesty. “You know I spun myself up a new body, when we got here?” Alison said. She said it viciously, to get Mallory’s attention. “Eighteen years old. Perfect skin. Great hair. Cloaked myself in it, looked in a mirror, and I threw up. Upchucked virtual cookies. I checked the logs and my, actual, brain, that one in the window, it shook.” She had her girl’s attention. Nothing attracted a kid like spilling parental secrets. Alison flexed her fingers and held herself back. No, she couldn’t give too much. It wasn’t fair to the kid. She wanted her body back so badly. Not this set of neural cells and electrical signals. Parenting was hard enough with fingers and toes, and her own teeth. How could she dig deep with a bereft teenager, when she had nothing to dig with? Mallory was starting to cry again. Up in the sky glittering motes sparkled into the late afternoon sky. Cerulean shinies that were probably part of her husband. He liked it, losing flesh. He really did like it. Alison made a decision, and ran a set of subroutines. Drawing down on her weekly data allowance. She executed a function. An enormous, fleshy brain slammed into the ground ahead of them. Outside of its container it lolled around, bouncing on the deep grass. The women watched it pinwheel towards them, coming to a halt at their feet, like a pink dog. Spinal fluid gushed from its interior, pooling on the top. “Alright,” Alison said. “Lets assess this brain. Objectively. Asymmetrical folding both fore and aft. Spotty and underdeveloped cerebellum. Temporal lobe SUCKS. This is a C minus brain.” “Mom!” Mallory reached out, wounded. Alison shook her head. “This isn’t yours. This is an image of Christine’s brain,” Alison said. “And you know what? It’s smooth. Downright smooth brain.” “Smooth,” Mallory said. She wrinkled her nose. Alison smacked the foremost glistening lobe. “SMOOTH.” And it dawned on Mallory. Mother had handed her a weapon. “Smooth brain” would detonate on Christine’s face. “Yeah. Yeah! Smooth! Smooth like a baby’s rear end!” Mallory said. She nodded, and ventured to smack it. The neural jelly bobbled under her attack. Christine’s simulated 3D brain bore it stoically. Tears dripped off Mallory’s face and evaporated before they hit the ground. The simulation could have them moisten the dirt, but it was wasteful. And then unexpectedly she turned and gave Mom a hug. It felt very, very real. Yellow-coated wires between them sparked and surged, and the sensation was registered, across the cortex, as a warm embrace. Sections of memory compared it to prior hugs they had known. Alison put her arms around her daughter.
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Jun 18, 2023 04:03
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HELP! I’M TRYING TO DATE IN A WORLD WHERE MY FUTURE SELF CAN TIME TRAVEL TO RUIN MY RELATIONSHIP! By Copernic 899 Words My future self died on the first date, while I was trying to think of bands I like. I could already tell that Emma had too much personality to be into someone like me. Her dating profile was a word cloud of interests, a glittering cloud of personality facets, and I’d figured her a liar. She was displaying a shiny rainbow of hobbies in case any color caught an eye. I’d thought it was desperation, which meant we had something in common. “The problem is,” Emma said. Her forearms were wrapped in tattoos. An anchor on her wrist. “I hate Coachella. I hate it. I thought less of Infected Mushroom for playing it. I know thats unfair. But what I realized is this. If you show up with a Red Cross jacket on. Carrying enough water bottles. They think you’re rendering essential aid. They offer to help you carry them in.” “Incredible,” I said. My bare skin rested on the restaurant table, unmarked by ink. I needed an anecdote she would laugh at. Anything. My Dad had taken me to see Dave Matthews Band when I was seventeen. I had no idea how that would play with her. And she’d dressed up, in a green dress with pockets, and a filigree of silver around her neck. I looked around the restaurant, to attempt thinking, and my future self caught my eye. Of course, everyone was vaguely on the lookout, in case their later version came back down. Mine stood behind the host table, near a set of velvet drapes. He had my eyes, and wore a suit, for the occasion. As soon as he had my attention, and gave me the head shake, a severe one, with a frown, he started to dissolve. That’s what happened after they gave the warning, their timeline went away. Wisps of yellow light passed up into the HVAC. My older self was soon just that. Beams of lemonade. “That was me,” I said, without thinking. I pointed, at the last few skeins of goldenrod. “That– it was me. He gave me – myself – the head shake. The shake. The– I got the head shake.” I turned back. For the first time I really locked eyes with Emma. I’d been too nervous, before. She had green-blue eyes, and had outlined them in emerald. It wasn’t a small thing, to come back to the past. First of all, when the mission was accomplished, you died. Your timeline blew up. Plus they sent you back years too soon, so you could pay off the debt, before you had earned it. Working for the company, arranging doomed travelers like yourself, living in the separated, liminal space of the time traveler’s dorm. All to give yourself – what? A warning. A warning you’d die to give. I had just been bequeathed a great gift. Emma was upset. She stood up, opened her mouth, and didn’t find any words to say to me. She pushed her way out, and I saw, for the first time, her discomfort in her heels. I ran after her. “Hey, hey,” I said, outside. One less of me walked the Earth. “Wait. We can still talk, right? I think–” “Oh– come on,” Emma said. She hid her face, turned away and away. Anywhere but towards me. “You just avoided a car crash. Don’t chase the other vehicle. Don’t do that.” “It’s not–” my mouth kept working. Already, tears were carving a line through her eyeshadow. The two of us had destroyed this woman’s night. “It’s not– look, you should go get checked out. I’ve heard… sometimes it’s… like, sometimes its cancer. In the other person. Sometimes its tragic. I’ve read about this. Sometimes it’s a hurt so bad you can’t let it happen.” I reached out and held her hand. My nemesis, Emma. The future knew we were bad for each other. I was scared of her, of her blue-green eyes. “You think we fall in love, so bad, that when I die in a blimp accident, it tears you up inside,” Emma said. She laughed, and gently pulled her hands free. “That’s your first thought, huh? Maybe you’ll fall in love too much.” She’d shut off. A mask clicked into place. Maybe she’d learned a lot about being hurt, too. Probably some of the tattoos addressed that. I’d never know. “I think its possible. At least – I mean– tell your doctor,” I babbled. I needed to run. I had been given a second chance. I had never made a decision about the Dave Matthews Band story. It probably would’ve made her laugh. “Well, good news, sort of. For you. I don’t think that is it,” Emma said. “I think I’m physically healthy. Thanks for the date.” “You don’t need to thank me. I ruined it. All of me,” I said. I meant it sincerely. I default to earnest. It had never helped me. “I think its nice. I’m glad it happened,” Emma said. She picked up everything she was, every devastated part, and figured out how to smile. It was very impressive. “Now we both get a brighter future.” She turned and walked off. I kept noticing things – she was thinner than she should be. She had on a thin belt I hadn’t even noticed before. She’d worn earrings. I felt it was my responsibility to pay attention. I had died for this woman. I would never know why.
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Thunderdome Week 571 - Mashup! Genres! Here's a partial list of fiction genres: Children's Classic (or literary fiction) Coming-of-age Bildungsroman: Encyclopedic Epic: Epic poetry: Fabulation: Folklore (folktale) Animal tale Fable: Fairy tale Ghost story Legend: Myth: Parable Personal narrative Urban legend Historical: Alternate history: Historical fantasy Historical mystery Historical romance Regency romance Nautical fiction Pirate novel Metafiction Metaparody Nonsense Nonsense verse Paranoid Philosophical Pop culture: Postmodern Realist: Hysterical Religious or inspirational Christian Islamic Theological: Visionary Satire: Horatian Juvenalian Menippean Social and political fiction Libertarian sci-fi Social sci-fi Political thriller Thriller Conspiracy Erotic Legal Financial Political Psychological Romantic suspense Techno-thriller Urban: Western: Florida Northern Space Western romance Weird West Young adult Action and adventure Adventure fantasy Heroic fantasy Lost world Sword-and-sandal Sword-and-sorcery Sword-and-soul Wuxia Nautical Pirate Robinsonade Spy: Spy-Fi: Subterranean Superhero Survival Swashbuckler: Picaresque Comedy Burlesque Fantasy Comedy horror Parody Metaparody Sci-fi Surreal comedy Tall tale: Tragicomedy: Crime and mystery Crime fiction Caper Giallo Legal thriller Mystery: Cozy mystery: City mysteries Detective: f Gong'an Girl detective Inverted detective story (aka howcatchem) Occult detective Hardboiled Historical mystery Locked-room mystery Police procedural: Whodunit: Noir Nordic noir Tart Noir Speculative fiction Fantasy Fantasy Action-adventure Heroic Lost world Subterranean Sword-and-sandal Sword-and-sorcery Wuxia Contemporary Occult detective fiction Paranormal romance Urban Cozy fantasy[8] Dark Fairytale Fantastique Fantasy comedy Bangsian Fantasy of manners Gaslamp Gothic Grimdark Gritty Hard High Historical Isekai Juvenile Low Magic realism: Mythic: Mythopoeia: Mythpunk Romantic Science: science fiction based in elements of fantasy.[9] Dying Earth Planetary romance Sword and planet Superhero Supernatural Shenmo Weird fiction New weird Weird West Horror Horror Body (aka biological): Frankenstein (1818). Comedy Zombie comedy Erotic (sometimes monster erotica) Ero guro Ghost stories and ghostlore Gothic American Southern Southern Ontario Space Suburban Tasmanian Urban Japanese Korean Lovecraftian (or Cosmic) Monster literature Jiangshi fiction Werewolf fiction Vampire literature Psychological Splatterpunk Techno Weird fiction Weird menace Weird West Zombie apocalypse Science fiction Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic Christian Comedy Utopian and dystopian Dystopian: Cyberpunk: Biopunk Dieselpunk Japanese cyberpunk Nanopunk Solarpunk Steampunk: Utopian: Feminist Gothic Isekai Hard Climate fiction Parallel world Libertarian Mecha Mecha anime and manga Military Soft Anthropological Social Science fantasy: Dying Earth Planetary romance Sword and planet Space opera: Space Western: Spy-Fi: Subterranean Superhero Tech noir Techno-thriller Romance Amish Chivalric Fantasy Contemporary Gay Lesbian Medical Erotic Thriller Romantic fantasy Historical Regency Inspirational: Paranormal Time-travel Romantic suspense Western Young Adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_genres Pick at least two, and jam them together. Cozy Fantasy x Lovecraftian? Why not! Dying Earth x Legal? Why not! Feminist x Gothic x Isekai x Hard Climate fiction x Parallel world x Libertarian x Mecha? Why not! 1000 words for your genre-spanning work. +500 for those brave enough to roll the wheel o' genres and get two at random. Please sign up by midnight pacific on July 14, 2023. Please submit by midnight pacific of July 16, 2023. JUDGES: Copernic Rohan Flyerant ENTRANTS: 1. Ouzo Maki [NAUTICAL ACTION-ADVENTURE x POLITICAL THRILLER] 2. derp [Paranoid x Post-modern/Ariana Grande] 3. Green Wing [CHIVALRIC ROMANCE x COMEDY] 4. Bad Seafood [SUBTERRANEAN x WESTERN] 5. Albatrossy_Rodent [MENIPPEAN SATIRE x TASMANIAN GOTHIC] 6. Doctor Zero [FINANCIAL THRILLER x COSMIC HORROR] 7. Chernobyl Princess [MATRON LITERATURE x TECH NOIR] 8. Kuiperdolin [Dying Earth x Legal] 9. flerp [ROBINSONADE x SPORTS FICTION] 10. sebmojo [WUXIA x MEDICAL ROMANCE] 11. Thranguy [LGBT PULP FICTION x MYTH] 12. DigitalRaven [BANGSIAN x CAPER] 13. My Shark Waifuu [BILDUNGSROMAN x ALTERNATE HISTORY] Copernic fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 17:50
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Ouzo Maki posted:In and spin, please NAUTICAL ACTION-ADVENTURE x POLITICAL THRILLER
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Jul 11, 2023 18:08
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Green Wing posted:In and spin baybee CHIVALRIC ROMANCE x COMEDY
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Jul 11, 2023 18:10
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Bad Seafood posted:In to spin. SUBTERRANEAN x WESTERN
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Jul 11, 2023 18:53
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Albatrossy_Rodent posted:In and spin. You are allowed to rig the spin to make the mashup goofier. MENIPPEAN SATIRE x TASMANIAN GOTHIC
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Jul 11, 2023 18:54
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Doctor Zero posted:I've been looking for a theme to be too good to pass up instead of finishing other work, and this is I'm assuming this is a spin request. FINANCIAL THRILLER x COSMIC HORROR.
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Jul 11, 2023 18:56
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Chernobyl Princess posted:Spin me! MATRON LITERATURE x TECH NOIR
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Jul 11, 2023 20:30
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flerp posted:in give me thing ROBINSONADE x SPORTS FICTION
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Jul 11, 2023 21:37
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sebmojo posted:In spin WUXIA x MEDICAL ROMANCE
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Jul 11, 2023 22:05
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Thranguy posted:In with a spib LGBT PULP FICTION x MYTH
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Jul 11, 2023 22:28
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DigitalRaven posted:Gimme the spin, kissed and told, this Thunderdome I'm in. BANGSIAN x CAPER
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Jul 12, 2023 14:19
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My Shark Waifuu posted:Spin to win! BILDUNGSROMAN x ALTERNATE HISTORY
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Jul 12, 2023 20:33
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Signups are closed.
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Jul 15, 2023 15:52
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submissions CLOSED
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Jul 17, 2023 14:05
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Week 571 Judgment Post For all the ritualized groaning, when the call went out, the Thunderdome showed up. Nearly everyone took a harrowing spin, and many delivered on the most puzzling premises. Kuiperdolin told a story of judgment, and they too were judged. The Technicality wins this mashed-up week with a seamless story. HMs go to: Flerp [Game in Exile] Chernobyl Princess [Spilling the Tea] Sebmojo [The Flying Steel of Doctor Wang] Clearly you know how to judge, Kuiperdolin! The next week is yours! Crits to follow.
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Jul 18, 2023 01:55
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my ten year old wrote his own story after being inspired by this week's stories: The Secret of Kidpernic It was a normal day at Kidpernic Business Co. Ted was going to his business meeting at 10:10 They told him to finish 3 pages of paperwork by Thursday He was appalled until they told IF he finished the paperwork he could go to the BIG CORPORATE MEETING!!! He said yes immediately and went home His wife was appalled until he told her IF he did the paperwork he could go to the BIG CORPORATE MEETING!!! She said yes immediately and went to the bathroom Long story short he finished it. The executives told he at the meeting he would go to Tasmaninon He was worried though ‘cause no other worker had came back from there Long story short he got there. Surprisingly the city was bustling with people and beautiful houses They welcomed him with open arms and hot cocoa He could now see why his friends at Kidpernic didn’t come back He asked to see his friends and they surprisingly said yes They took him to a cave with a narrow entrance In the cave he saw all his friends Edward, his business partner, came over to him Ted started talking about financial security He wanted to see his friend and check him out (to see if he was okay) But Edward kept not letting Ted see his back Ted finally turned him around and saw his back There was a big gaping hole filled with wires and robot stuff That was when he saw the door A big black door Ted reached for it, his heart pounding, while all his other friends yelled “NO!” Inside was bloody guts, muscles, and brains It was like they scooped a hole in each of his friend’s bodys He ran outside and saw not only was the town deserted, but there was a big building in the distance He headed towards it and saw that it was a Kidpernic building He sneaked inside and saw full on robots talking and stuffing guts out of corpses He got a plane home and confronted Kidpernic The newspaper, three months later Hi , and welcome to flashbacks! Today we will be talking about a man who confronted Kidpernic The man, 39, had NO reason to confront this amazing company! I’ve been there, and it was amazing The man, Ted Tangalou now keeps working for Kidpernic, now completely loyal and obedient to his bosses. The End By Kidpernic My topic was FINANCIAL THRILLER x COSMIC HORROR Crits welcome
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Jul 18, 2023 03:56
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Week 571 Crits Flerp / Game in Exile: This was a strong contender to win. Putting Crusoe on an asteroid was a good choice. Mostly I was struck by the inventiveness of the game conceit, a creation of sheer ingenuity that by itself impressed. You gave yourself wood and sand, and made a moving vehicle out of it. How do I feel about outright explaining the metaphor to the reader? Frankly I was not seeing it on my own, so spelling it out was obviously the right move. And I think it pairs with the didactic element common to Crusoe books. Good work. Ouzo Maki / Damage Assessment: I felt like this drew from a wellspring of tropes without ever establishing its own energy and flow. Damaged protagonist, seasoned handler, action-adventure scene... all things I've read before. And the scenes lacked a connectivity to each other. Shouldn't Ted's inner issues have some connection to Lev? What purpose did the handler scene really have, especially as we lost out on more nautical action? This told a Nautical Action-Adventure but I didn't feel like it was YOUR Nautical Action-Adventure. All this being said my kid really loved this one. Perhaps I'm the jaded reader. Derp / Moonlight I could not get over what I felt like was a basic problem with the story -- a poet's treasury of carefully husbanded description deployed in service of a humdrum premise. Car accident with dead partner, a stock scene. No amount of lipstick can make me kiss this pig. And yes, the lipstick was slathered on with skill. But I needed a reason to smooch. Doctor Zero / Mind the GAAP This was written with verve and wit. My kid had the same issue with it I did -- I wanted more. Too little happens, too slowly. A lot of the setup before the black goop could've been cut, and a lot after it, as well. With such a slow plod in the setup the final turn to cosmic insanity comes almost as an afterthought, without sufficient foreshadowing. A sense of "oh, thats all." There was a missed opportunity here to bring more cosmic horror heat. DigitalRaven / A Ghost of A Heist An Ocean's Eleven of the afterlife's best was the right setup, and the story gestures at a delightful "each with their special talent" icy-cool thriller. But the caper story itself is muddled and indistinct, and the turn into the Liston stuff was a bizaare turn to me. It didn't fit Caper at all, and gave your cast no way to shine. Chernobyl Princess / Spilling the Tea A delightful and charming story executed with casual skill. How do I feel that a central mystery, WHY this tea shop is so guarded, was never explained? On balance I think I am for it -- I don't think a story needs to tie every loose end. But I did notice it. The twist objective of the hacking antics was well appreciated. Some points deducted from a lack of real suspense. Oh no, the tea register boy might be annoyed. Albatrossy_Rodent / A Tasmanian Devil This was easily the hardest prompt. And yes, it does pull off Tasmanian Gothic x Menippean Satire. The Devil element harkens to The Master and Margarita, plopped in Tasmania. Kudos, and in only 562 words. But for all that, there's just a disappointing hint of the gothic, and hardly any plot to boot. Ultimately this read more like a list of references to Oz than a fully-formed story, with a vegemite patter that was more painful than witty. But full marks for effort. Kuiperdolin / The Technicality Not just a Dying Earth story but in full command of that obscure genre, with everything that makes it strange and great. Mysterious characters barely hinting at their lengthy backstories, casual references to epochal change, and all presented through eons of legal precedent. The twist at the end was adroitely signposted but pulled off with talent. I also think its a good decision to write a lot of dialogue. Dialogue is just more interesting than paragraphs of description. My Shark Waifuu / The Book of The Dead Almost painfully earnest. This story was very solid in both the good and bad sense. It told a story simply and without ornament. But it also never quite told me why I should keep reading, what character or plot element or twist or wit I was taking away. I needed a spark that brought more to a straightforward story about this kid and his dead Dad. Also, was this an alternate history story? What was alternate? Thranguy / Small Miracles There's a lot of good ideas in here, not quite assembled correctly. We start with action, always a good idea -- but then it segues into a long middle section explaining the premise, and the premise never quite has much to do with the action sections of beating up Nazis, and then the concluding scene has no real action and is a little bit pat. It also talks about horny but doesn't commit to being horny. Sebmojo / The Flying Steel of Doctor Wang An impressive parody, which drops whistle-out-loud lines in almost every paragraph, and there are a lot of paragraphs. This one felt like it was born out of deep, committed study to its genre, and benefited from it. I worry that this one suffered in judging by being so drat silly -- is there an inherent prejudice against wacky stories? After all, I could hardly ask for better wackiness. Bad Seafood / The Deep Down Under A well-told yarn in the classic western vein. To be honest, I think I was hard on this story because I kept expecting some big twist, emerging in the deep depths of hollow earth, and couldn't quite appreciate a rolicking reptile steed adventures. But I do think there's only so much a reader gets out of 700-800 words of walking through a mining camp and into a mine, until we get into the big lizard action. If you're gonna have a cowboy fight a dinosaur I think it should happen most of, if not all of, the 1500 words.
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Jul 18, 2023 04:55
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