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Both stories don't gel that much with me. If I had to choose it will be B, simply because the prose was slightly better than A. 

They both mix the mundane with the fantastical, but in a way that's not satisfying to read. A washes away any lasting consequences and stakes with a very eye rolling "lolol the person is just a bit crazy and it's all in their head." It felt ameuteurish to me.

Story B did the evil secretive corpo thing, but had nothing substantive to say that would make the mind linger. I did like the memories the protag has about their suburban childhood which felt like the most genuine part of the story. If you left out the secret corpo and experimentation and focused on the ennui and aimlessness, but at the same time the nostalgia of the American suburban lifestyle, it would've been much more thought provoking.

Btw. Is story A from a Dutch person? I spotted a Heineken reference.

Do you think Heineken beer only exists in the Netherlands, or do you just think it's not really popular elsewhere (or some other, secret third option)? Because I mean, it's sold (at a lesser quality I'm sure) at the grocery store in my little town in Kansas.

It's also the way it's written and certain surnames like Nielsen. A smidge of Dutch smell is present.

I confess to some partial Dutch heritage on my mother's side.

Aren't you from like, Missouri?

No, I'm on the East Coast. Why did you think I was from Missouri?

I honestly don't know

No problem lol

I live in Virginia. I wonder if I really do project that sort of Midwest energy though.

Both stories are interesting and well written. No glaring SPAG issues and no huge text blocks.  My vote would go for Story B. 

It is interesting that with the prompt both submissions were focused on insanity and madness.  I think there is an argument to be made that both stories actually focus on Delusion instead of Illusion, but both work well enough I choose to overlook that.  While Story A was interesting, the sudden weirdness at the end as the delusion collapsed on itself kind of broke me out of it.  Story B feels like a chilling prelude chapter to a dark and creepy book about NewLife studies and the organzation behind them.

Why do you come across as more posh than the most posh British person. I'm beginning to read all your posts in a British accent. Imagining you sipping tea and swiveling your top hat. 

My vote is for story B.

This one's tough. At first I found story A really boring and found myself glazing over at the monotonous talking but the longer it went on the better it slowly became. Becoming more absurd and funny. I disagree with the other contestants that this absurdity element was a neg negative for the story. 

The theme is relatively similar for both stories, both are almost equally dark (story B a little more so) but they couldn't have been conveyed more differently

I found story B a bit more consistent in entertainment value, but I found her inner monologue to her eventual suicide feeling a bit rushed or not fleshed out enough, I wish there was more build up to the suicide or more hints to imply that she knows her parents never cared about her. In the end we don't really get that, we know it from a third person view, but Taylor never really explains it to the reader except that her mom (disgustingly and abhorrently) goes running on a treadmill at 6AM lmao

Story B is a little bit more memorable due to the slightly darker undertones of no body giving a shit about her, but acting like they do, especially your own parents

I found story A more fun to read, but story B more memorable. Overall I vote for story A due to finding it more entertaining. If story B fleshed out the relationship dynamics a bit more, and heightened the build up to her suicide id have voted for story B 

Final vote: I'm immature so,  story A

I really enjoyed both stories. Story A was very entertaining and started off pretty strong and the twist was pulled off pretty good. I honestly have no clue what the prompt was but I wasn't expecting it at all, so going in blind I wasn't expecting anything. I kinda wanted to know more about what was going on by the end of it.

Story B was also really well put together, but I had more questions regarding the story itself - like how was the MC fed? Did she remember eating or drinking the entire year she was in captivity - she had to have eat something to stay alive that long. Also she hinted that she wasn't a grown adult yet, so how would her friends, neighbors, teachers, etc. react to her being back all of a sudden? Are they in on it too? Its possible I missed a piece that explained it. But I did like it anyways.

It was a tough choice but I think I'll go with Story A - just because I had less questions about the story/setting itself. 

4 for A, 9 for B ATM

In memory of Ford I will continue his tradition of voting without reading the entires.

B

He had to step away due to IRL issues.

After reading both stories, I'm gonna have to go with Story A. They were both decent, but I thought A was funnier.

I decided to use bullet points because I thought it'll be less wordy and take less time, but evidently that didn't happen. 

Story A

• Establishes tone, setting and character well from the start
• ‘Peter, his closest friend for eighteen years mused’ - grammatical error; either remove the comma or add one after ‘years’ 
• Lots of description to easily envision the characters. Specific adjectives used well
• Narrative voice matches the character’s personality, with slang terms like ‘riffraff’ and ‘good ol’
• Soon, the build-up occurs with as there is ‘trouble in paradise’ - the arrival of someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. Subtle signs of the underlying building tension from the use of terms like ‘playing along’ and ‘trying to stay polite’
• Lots of dialogue within this story, which is used well, as it is focused on the characters and the protagonist’s reactions to them rather than the plot/ setting
• It’s a bit distracting how there are lots of replacement words for ‘said’, some with adjectives, which could be integrated more seamlessly if dialogue was interwoven with actions (also you’re allowed to use ‘said’)
• Other than that, as some other comments have said, it’s a standard conversation and takes too long to get to the point, which is a bit of a problem when there are limited words
• ‘Right. The guilt trip. Whatever.’ - Tbh, this feels a bit unwarranted, as he started off trying to remember the guy’s name, wondering if he could participate given his religion, then suddenly is annoyed by him
• It’s slightly inconsistent as his first reaction to him doesn’t match the racist judgement that occurs later
• But either way, he gets more racist as the story progresses, like when he mentions not wanting to associate with ‘people who just really have no chance of fitting in’
• Then he just growls at another man; his anger seems unprovoked and sudden
• Interesting how everyone sees something different from him, which is where the theme comes in. This adds to the suspense and eerie tone
• The phrase ‘steam coming out of his ears’ feels a bit cartoonish and jarring as the tension rises in this part of the story
• My guess is that he’s hallucinating or something, as he believes they’re all lying
• Oh, so the wife is not real either. ‘Woman he had loved for almost ten years’ - based on their interactions, ‘love’ is not the word I’d use here
• Looking back, I can appreciate some of the foreshadowing, like how he didn’t remember his imagined co-worker’s name and there was the phrase, ‘Or did that indicate something else?’
• And it was sudden how once he said his first name, he instantly knew the second
• But there’s still a lot of confusion left, like how much was real and how much wasn’t. Moreover, why didn’t his real friends react to his earlier conversations with his imaginary friends?
• I’d recommend having a sign of each hallucination, e.g. in a movie I’ve heard about where a man hallucinates half his interactions with others, these interactions always occur when he’s alone and seem too good to be true, whereas the ‘real’ moments are those with two or more other people
• Nevermind, later it’s revealed everything was a hallucination - though I’d still have appreciated more foreshadowing, like cracks in reality or his past memories blending into his present, otherwise the ending seems like it comes out of nowhere
• He wasn’t even eating at the start so I am not persuaded by the ‘food triggers his hallucination’ explanation.

Story B

• It starts off with purple prose and overly excessive description, but this actually works well to show the narrator’s longing for the outside world. The overdramatic use of adjectives juxtaposes the blankness of the room in the next paragraph
• I like the use of first person pov combined with the protagonist’s internal thoughts
• It’s melodramatic, but once again given the protagonist and where they are, it makes sense
• The only issue with this is that just like the previous story, it takes too long to build up. There is a lot of repetition, and while this is a literary device, having too much just slows the pacing and bores the reader. There’s a whole paragraph where almost every sentence can be summarized by ‘I’ve been trapped here for a long time’. Also, there’s a limited word count for these entries so it’s important not to waste words
• Normally, an emotionally charged breakdown scene can be impactful, but it only makes sense if the readers know the character enough to care and understand why they are breaking down
• Protagonist goes through some memories which hints at how she got here and her life before this
• These snippets of memories seem important, but without much context, it’s hard to tell how they relate to the larger mystery at hand
• She starts to go delusional
• There’s a sort of defiance in forcing herself to stay awake, even when it doesn’t help, but it makes sense since she’s grasping at straws - good depiction of determination in the face of insanity
• Follows a similar plot twist as the previous one where the protag is the subject of an experiment
• Different formatting and writing style used for the scientific note and letter was helpful
• Where before, a lack of information was used to create suspense, this time, everything is revealed to the reader and the tension comes from anticipation of the protagonist’s reaction to being returned home where her parents would pretend it never happened
• The parents are evil, being able to pretend that everything is normal so easily after subjecting their daughter to such an experiment 
• Just like the previous story, a generic seeming conversation is used to create a false sense of normalcy with an underlying tone of something being wrong
• The ‘I always suspected they didn’t really love me, that they wanted me gone’ part felt too sudden, as during her time in that room, she never had this idea even once
• There wasn’t anything that prompted this to make it a ‘realization’; rather, it felt like a random possibility that entered her mind
• If, let’s say, she remembered something bad about her home life and then forced herself not to think of it/ tried to rationalize it, or something happened in the conversation with her parents that gave them away, then it’ll feel less abrupt
• But as it stands, this story—just like the previous one—didn’t quite foreshadow the plot twist enough to make it as satisfying as it could be (seemed slightly too random)
• And as for the ending, it felt contrary to the protagonist
• Characterization was inconsistent - earlier, she was doing everything she could to stay awake; to not succumb to sleep because she somehow equated it with death. And now she’s back, she just decides to die? After she was fighting so hard for life earlier? Maybe if it was framed a bit differently (e.g. she was only surviving for her parents and after their betrayal is revealed she has no reason to live), it might make more sense
• The last letter seems to just echo what is already known. Perhaps a letter from the parents about how they feel may have more of an impact and reveal something new instead

Marking criteria (which tbh didn’t help me decide)

• Theme: both apply it very similarly, though if I were being nitpicky, hallucinations are not illusions
• Writing style: A has a dialogue-focused and simple style, whereas B is more descriptive and focuses on internal monologue; both match the scope of their story well
• Grammar and proofreading: Honestly I didn’t really look out for this, but B feels more polished as a whole
• Main character: protagonists acted inconsistently in both; ironically, B’s protagonist was more fleshed out, which made the inconsistency at the end more jarring, whereas I suppose A’s odd behaviour can just be waved away by the medical condition at the end
• Antagonist: in A, they appeared randomly in the last scene and were archetypal, but in B, I liked the way they’re consistently portrayed as a cold, calculating corporation
• Plot: Neither of these had enough foreshadowing to make the twist feel more ‘satisfying’ than ‘random’, though A had a slightly better grasp of pacing

Voting: I’ll admit that I wasn’t very sure about which one to vote for, so I looked at what other people voted for. All things considered, B wins by a small margin. 

words

Have I been inactive for that long? And trust me, once I've posted a few more times, you'll get annoyed at having to scroll past a long textwall lol. 

Oh right, you're the one who had a large name in bolded text. Sometimes I log out of my account and lurk so I wouldn't be tempted to write a lot of words for no reason when I have assignments to complete. 

Imagine not making your first account in middle school

Oh yeah that whiny guy was you. Now that you have a profile picture you're a different person in my head

Btw, saying this here do to a healthy fear of contest threads:

Gayest story gayme is quite the goal. Best of luck being gayer than some of the masterpieces out there... best of luck.

I was gonna fix my typo T-T

Just don't fuck up and it'll be okay. Remember the standard to which you are held

RK just need to make sure to post a thread about how it is the most transformative gay and depressing story ever.  Sure to win.

Don't forget he needs a huge text wall full of absurdly glorious claims

A brief rundown on my thoughts (excluding anything inolving commas):

Story A is definitely playing to people's sense of humor. It's written to the audience. I find the jokes in it to be quite funny, but the twist at the end didn't land for me. The beginning seems to slow and the end seems too rushed. I think some nice pacing would really help here. Otherwise, I like the character of Dan and that he only has one line. That's the first hint I caught that something was up. Honestly, I wasn't bored at the beginning (as I've seen some people mentioning here). It DOES seem a little slow, but I think it'a still pretty interesting.

Story B is much darker, though overall much more cohesive. The ending was a little rushed. I would've liked for it to go more into Taylor's life back from her confinement, and maybe answer some questions regarding how this secret was kept from the rest of the world, as well as a more slow descent into realizing her parents don't care about her. We seem to go from "They probably cried every night" to "They're probably in on this" rather fast, even considering that the girl isn't thinking clearly.

Oh yeah, voting. If I had to vote, I'd honestly pick Story B

:)

Lies and heresy. It's a different day and nothing is called.

:)

I win! I win!

Congrats Fresh!

My hat's off to you, Fresh! Your short story was definitely worth the votes. For a moment, when I saw you vote for Story B, I thought that it might not have been you who submitted that lol

It was an honor to fight in another Thunderdome, and I will return...

I just figured me not voting was suspicious. I knew my vote wouldn't count

Congrats to both of you. They were both really good stories and most votes seem to be nit-picky between the two - which means it was great match up.

Fresh was cheated out of a fair fight last time, so I wanted to give her a real Thunderdome experience. Using AI to write a story for you is insulting.

Appreciated