1/13/2018

11/25/2025 7:20 PM

927

4

2 wins / 0 losses

Infrangible Warden

A Treatise on Heartly Manners

A contest entry for Bucky's year's end contest: choose your own prompt II.
Play as Lord Robert, the baron of Rivellon, at the lowest point of his life. He's cheated on by his wife, betrayed by his liege and filled to the brim with a turmoil of conflicting emotions.
How does his life end? 

Avarga

Entry for EndMaster's Prompt Contest 3. In this epic tale of courage, sacrifice, and redemption, Your journey will take you to the very edge of existence and beyond. Will you stand to lead; or will your story be cut short?

Brimstone

Allow me to share my story.

Cannibal Apocalypse

Pretty sure this isn't meant for the family-friendly category.

AvargB

unpublished

Contest Winner

unpublished

It did not win.

Darkest Hour

unpublished

The year is 2478 and the human race once again finds itself within Sol's borders. Like a phoenix from our bitter past, we have risen anew.

Like Aeneas, we had been cast out of our home. We searched the galaxy for a new home, and like him, we found it and made it our own. We struggled and were battered by the harsh conditions. But now, both ready and willing, we will eclipse the legends of old.

Now we shall fight to reclaim what is rightfully ours.

General Butt Naked

unpublished

FOR ENDMASTER'S CONTEST<, PRAISED BE THE LEGEND.

Liberia and Sierra Leone are small countries on the west coast of Africa. Like many African countries, the lands are extremely rich in natural resources and vibrant in culture.

However, in the 1980s the climate halted in corruption and mismanagement under the All People's Congress Party. With over 70% of the people barely capable of buying a single cup of rice, survival became much harder. Not trusting in the democratic process any longer, the RUF was formed to drastically revamp the economic system and redistribute the country's wealth. They fought for education, jobs, and true democracy. In the process, they pillaged the lands and cut off many limbs.

It is in these times Joshua Milton Blahyi is born, butt naked. And in these times he'll fight, butt naked. For he is:

General Butt Naked.

Neglected

unpublished

This is my neglected story.

zExpedition Aquarius

unpublished

For centuries, man has scoured the stars, desperate to find its likeness. Thus far all was for naught; empty husks and barren rocks worked hard to crush his dreams. There was just one anomaly, one beacon amid the darkness. This is its story. This is the story of man's first foray to the stars.

An entry to Mizal's Tiny 'topias Jam. Where a lot more little bite-sized stories are -and will be- shared by other authors.

And for those that don't have the extension, and thus can't click on the storygame to open it, here's a tiny backdoor left open. Feel free to make use of it, and even leave a comment if you like.

Expedition Aquarius

zLetters Unanswered

unpublished

An epistolary novel containing the desperate pleas of a sole father. How will he bring his daughter safety in a city ripe for rebellion?

An entry to Mizal's Tiny 'topias Jam. Where a lot more little bite-sized stories are -and will be- shared by other authors.

And for those that don't have the extension, and thus can't click on the storygame to open it, here's a tiny backdoor left open. Feel free to make use of it, and even leave a comment if you like.

Letters Unanswered

I'll join as well so Ogre can too

These have literally been your only two posts so what the actual fuck have you been smoking

Well the thing with AI is that nowadays we've come to the point AI is training AI instead of human engineers. so you enter a positive feedback loop (better AI trains AI better, leading to far better AI) most people in the field expect will lead to exponential growth. There's actually an AI race going on between China's Deepseek and America's multiple AI companies and you know for damn sure they won't regulate, seeing as regulations postpone when you truly reap the benefits of entering that exponential growth phase. So the question is rather whether you want your own unregulated AI to come on top (with hopefully some influence of your own programming) or China's unregulated AI and the answer can't be neither.

I'll be actually reading these later and perhaps changing my vote. But so far A is the clear winner on formatting alone. C has that ugly double spacing and B, yeah let's not talk about story B. --- Alright I'm back and once again confronted with the fact there are THREE instead of just the TWO entries in this thunderdome edition. Now most would be gladdened to have the extra story to entertain themselves with. I'm not most people. Then again I'm also confronted by the fact one of those THREE is a kid with no-no word filters severe enough to make even a Chink blush and I can't decide whether I find I'm glad she got those filters on or not. The gweilo I am, I am simply unaccustomed to such draconian measures. But the white man is nothing if not innovative, so I just have to try to circumvent it appropriately somehow. Yeah I know, I can also be something of a riot. Alright the tone is set. Let's start with what I'll be looking for with the prompt. Now I vaguely recall someone looking up in a dictionary what the textbook definition of a riot actually was. I'd gently suggest to that guy he could've put his hands to better use polishing up his knob instead. Because we all know what we want from a story about a riot. Violence! Rage! The streets are overflowing with a mob that plunders from the neighborhood family's grocery shop and lights random working people's cars on fire because they are just that mad at the big and unapproachable thing they're rioting against. Yeah! That'll show them how ANGRY we all are! Who's them? Who cares, we are ANGRY! Now we've truly set the tone. Let's see how well you all accomplished this. The usual applies: this isn't intended as feedback, just a rant that I type as I go through the text. Contrary to some entrant's computer, I won't filter any stray thought that arises. Makes it more genuine, you know. --- Story A. Have I said how much I can appreciate good formatting? It's something I'll say again, because having to have had scrolled through this thread again to edit my post, I was once again confronted by the two entries that didn't have any. Crazy how much you appreciate something you'd always held for granted when it is suddenly taken away. Now with the compliment given, I feel free to roast the line you opened up your story with. Some hold the first line in an almost mystical regard, it's the literal opening line after all, and countless articles are written on how to achieve that perfect combination of words to pull the reader into the world you're attempting to craft. And everybody knows how first impressions form the basis of almost anything. With that in mind, I do question the author's choice to start with a mob that 'before today only existed in someone's grandfather's stories'. But that definitely won't slow Jack down! Why? Why is this relevant information? Out of all the descriptors you could've used to illustrate the sheer size of the mob, why the grandfather's story? Way to make a first impression, man. Go and suckle on a licorice stick. The anarchist's speech sounds exactly like how someone envisions an impassioned speech while splayed out on a couch. This arouses jack manure. Where is the zeal? The ardor necessary to impassion the crowd? It's probably this guy's most important moment in his life. The very act that'd make him safe and successful or doom him to death or the regime's torturers. You would think he would try at something more than the most lazy stereotypical: thank you all for being being. I know it was hard, but we made it. We will do what we set out to do. Hell, it feels more at home in a board meeting than a riot. Where is the death? The glory? The sheer passion that will put those dogs at the mercy of the people? Yeah the crowd getting too rowdy is definitely something our budding anarchist had to contend with, lol. I find these speeches are best when actually spoken out loud when you write them. If it looks good but sounds shit, ehm like dung, it's probably not as good as you think. Now credit where credit's due. After the lackluster speech the writing picked up again. I liked the little present and future line and everything flowed more naturally from there on. As an aside, the anarchist is a bit daft when he was all about keeping the kid safe, but brought both of them to the forefront of the mob as they stand ready to storm the capital. That's about the least safe place to be. But you see, after that speech we all knew he was a bit daft! So that makes it actually good writing now! I've read the ending now and you may have noticed I didn't write about the writing after the action picked up and that is a good thing. I was entertained by the ebb and flow of the assault and the descriptions used were successful in making me envision the scene. As a whole, this story had quite the good pacing. Now, without reading anyone else's review, I imagine some may find the twist at the end off-putting. Lately it seems a twist has become the standard rather than a twist. I think truly subverting expectations in today's entertainment would be to have everything play out as it goes. Personally I quite liked the cynical view: revolutions don't fail because of countless reasons, or that power eventually corrupts everyone. No, they fail because the new leaders are as bad as the old from the very start. Callous self preservation now as a stand in for rampant self interest in the future is a pretty nifty thing to include. If I would change a few things, I would start by giving the 'man' a name (and a better speech). I can see why you wanted to make him as a faceless and nameless stand-in to so many revolutionary leaders, but in the actual piece it detracted the clarity of writing, which is more of a detriment to the story as a whole than the benefit it'd give to your intended message. I'd also reread and reword the climax of the story where the boy was used as a meatshield. Specifically the paragraph from the door opening. The protagonist being slow and not realizing it all might add to the innocence, but as a concept it is overused as a lazy crutch to bandaid bad writing. It'd hit far more if the protagonist actually had the presence of mind to see it happen, but be too surprised and physically inferior to change matters and handle the 'man'. All in all, good job. Writing: 4/5 Theme: 5/5 Enters whim: -2 Total: 7/10 ---- Story B. Story B might be the reason my scrollwheel's been acting up lately. Or well, if not the reason, it definitely highlighted the fact. I know nowadays we are all about less being more, but I am quite old fashioned in the sense that I do like having more than three paragraphs on my screen at one time. The fact half of those are just 'drip drip drip' distills me with the emotion a riot should have: it makes me angry. Now whether this is good writing is a completely different question. Anyway a fist person viewpoint is a quick way to score points as I do enjoy it more than a third person limited. That makes the cardinal sin of changing the viewpoint midway, here just three paragraphs (or one screen) in, all the more enraging. Why? A simple reread of the piece would've highlighted the fact. If it was a conscious decision to do so, the decision was horsemuck. If it wasn't a conscious decision, it's pure laziness at play here. One of the annoying prisoners asked to 'define better' to which my answer would be 'not this'. I would also recommend Gower's article regarding dialogue punctuation. https://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=4309 Anyway while I was busy looking up the article itself, we're back in Ms. Sue's first person point of view. She easily handled some ruffians, even backvaulting over one. Now how do you envision this? A backvault after all, is pretty slow all things considered. You need to fight gravity to and once in the air you're not really maneuverable as there's no ground to push off to change directions. Then the story quickly turned into some metaphysical cosmic loredump about the world instead of, you know, the riot and I quickly skimmed the ending. Yeah I'm sure the rest will have enough to say about this so I'll refrain from the matter. Needless to say, I didn't like it. Writing: 1/5 Theme: 2/5 Enter's whim: -1 Total 1/10 ----- Story C: Now as much as I dogged on it for the double spacing, I did quite like the opening sentences. It had an interesting premise and build upon the idea. I also quite liked the detail used to describe the Parisian setting itself. It was a bit needlessly wordy, but who am I to dog on someone's writing style. Oh right, I am Enter, a notorious enjoyer of all things involving cumulative sentencing, comma's, and overwrought modifiers. It was needlessly wordy, man. And if even I say it, it's gotta be true. Despite the writing itself, I am quite content reading about the coming and going of the Parisian rats. Have you seen those guys? They're huge! The novelty of seeing them described in thunderdome writing is very entertaining, though I must mention the almost autistic need to describe them turning left, then right, then right, then north, then left, then left, then beneath the false ceiling, around the stalactite, left again, right, and finally up. That is a solid 50 out of just 2000 words describing absolutely nothing. In fact, the further into the story I go, the more this entire thing reads like a self wanking session to just show the author's knowledge rather than impart a clear visage of the thing you're actually writing about. For example the epiglottis like structure: I only know how such a thing would look like by pure chance. But how many would have seen it, let alone have a clear mental image of it to place within the scene you're trying to portray? Maxilla and mandibles (or mandibulae if you want to keep to the extra fancy Latin) do sound very fancy. But this isn't an anatomy book, man, the skeletal jaws will do just fine. And I guess that is the crux of my entire rant. The writing stands too much at the forefront for me to focus on the scene itself. I liked the style at the very start, as it showed something different, a quirk that gave the story personality. However with every ensuing paragraph it almost tried to one-up itself to the point where we're reading about epiglottis like structures and I'm interacting with the words and sentences themselves rather than their intended meaning. I could envision story A's riot. I could even envision story B's Mary Sue backflipping over some probably stinking prisoner. However, the way these rats are scurrying about escapes my mental grasp. Part of it could be that you're last and I'm grumpy from the previous entries, but I don't think so. You spend so much time and words detailing 'inconsequential', for lack of better word, things, my eyes tend to glaze over and the less I care for these rats that inherently are very much capable of holding my attention. Hell, you used so many words to describe a whole lot of stale air the actual climax, the thing that actually mattered to the little plot there was, that little Titou either grasped his powers or grew mad, is just a few sentences. The cats came way out of the left field and there is no conclusion to the story to speak of. Absolute pacing of a trainwreck. Fuck man, it's so bad it almost made me forget my main gripe with the story: you managed to write a story set in Paris without a fucking riot in it. Writing: 3/5 Prompt: 0/5 Enter's whim: -3 for fucking up a story about rats. Total: 0/10 Fuck you twice. ---- So yeah story A still won. Could've skipped the reading and the rant itself and just kept to just that quick scroll through the thread for all it mattered.

I would never use them at home, but they're pretty chill at work. Just so you can hop in the booth, write up a quick report, and be out again dealing with the next shitstorm without even having to overcome the mental barrier that is standing up from a comfy chair.

This motherfucker speaks for himself. He ain't even in the top 10 lol. I do not mind the extra comms if people are happy enough to give them. Free shit is free shit after all.

I wouldn't sweat it. Oh by the way, Mystic is pretty cool

What do you mean 'probably'? I actually wrote a review, you know! Gave it a passing grade as well Imo it was clear the beauty was due to the book's influence btw, definitely a skill issue on the other readers' behalf

Me too, poor petros and wildblue

Well a quick cursory glance of the thread has shown that a lot of folk have given a lot of feedback. Wouldn't know if it was any good feedback, because then I'd have to read even more stuff, but this ain't that. This'll be a rant. Pure and simple. Just a stream of consciousness about what I like and what I don't, writing it as I'm reading the pieces. Alright as usual let's start with what I'll be looking for for the prompt. Power outage of an isolated town into strange events sounds like the stereotypical start of a low budget American indie horror. Now here's the tricky part: written horror more often than not sucks. One of my least favorite written genres, right next to warrior cats. Like a slasher is one of the few stories where I'd rather just see the movie and laugh at the shitty gory effects than read the weak produce of an imagination from someone who's never seen the inside of a body before. So in what manner would a written horror outshine the movie adaptation? Well, psychological horror would be your golden goose. But I also recall a previous thunderdome where both entrants failed at building up the suspense in a horror themed prompt, something that's harder but, if successful, even more rewarding on a page than a screen. Yeah no suspense means no payoff. Basically wine and dine the reader before you get to writing the part where people are getting fucked. ------- With that out of the way, let's start with story A: What can I say. It starts strong. Imagine being born with the stupidly horrific name of Tabitha. How the fuck would you even pronounce that without giving a subpar Mike Tyson impression. Yeah, she's definitely picking up the butcher knife later on in this story. She's got thirteen reasons for it and her name is definitely one of them. I'm giving props to the writer of even being capable of writing this entire story with a straight face, given that Tabitha is your protagonist. Now I'm sure I missed all the buildup and wining and dining, but I was too busy laughing every time her name came up. I guess it works out because I'll just assume it was good and move on. Tabitha is on her bike now and that mental image of just the cars' beams making straight streaks of lights through an otherwise dark town is a powerful one, especially with the ominous sound of helicopters filling the background, their searchlights lighting up the cold exterior of the hospital she's heading towards. It's cinematic. I can practically see the shot with light and darkness in stark contrast. On a quick added note, I'd remove the green blips entirely from this image. Too blurry. Too much information befuddling the shot you've build up. The more things you put on the proverbial screen, the less the individual pieces stick out. So build and expand upon it instead of adding more and more things. It's too bad though, that the writer doesn't hammer this image home. Instead of a pause in the writing, letting this image breathe, sink in and form the basis of further suspense, it quickly gets bogged down in that the town usually only has a single helicopter to carry patients to a bigger town and that she is vague on the details of the anonymous patients. I guess this is where I have to sprout the inane showing vs telling critique, an almost dogmatic advice I'm usually not a fan of. Still when you pick this part here, see where the showing part greatly outshines the telling part? Yeah, I thought so too. That is why I included it here. In the following paragraphs we follow Tabitha (lol) finding dead bodies of people she'd presumably know by heart in this small town. It is here I have another irk. Whereas suddenly seeing freshly murdered bodies would almost be the climax of a story for any normal person, here it's done away with the reluctant 'felt sick to her stomach and struggled not to vomit'. That's the only mention of any shock or emotional turmoil. Almost as if it was a quick obligatory mark off the checklist rather than part of an actual character. The writing there feels passive, detached if you're cynical, observant if you're willing to give the writer some credit. Either way, it's lacking any pathos to pull you in to that moment. Tabitha feels less a person than a plot piece carrying you onto the next scene. She doesn't truly react, or do anything. She doesn't cry out or shoot forwards as her mother single handedly manhandles a soldier. She successfully brought the plot towards this scene and faded into the background. Another action scene later where our protagonist once again did nothing but shined the spotlight on another plot piece and we have the obligatory character telling us the all secrets, banishing all mystery that'd leave any room to further ruminate on the piece. God forbid if not absolutely everything gets prechewed and served to the reader on a platter. All in all a pretty good buildup followed by a very subpar conclusion. Writing: 3/5 Prompt: 4/5 Enter's whim -3 Total 4/10 ---- I'm guessing Petros wrote story B. Grant is definitely a retarded nigga with the way he's speaking. Horror rules state he's dying first. On a different note, it's pretty funny Tiana managed to befriend an imbecile who can't even talk properly without noticing the permanent stream of drool dripping down his left mouthcorner. That says something about her as well. Oh. Grant's white. This is Wildblue then. The following meangirl drama could suit either to be fair. But let's talk about the actual writing now. It's fast, but in a good way, flowing well and snappy. Though I laughed at Tiana suddenly being some cool ranger type with the observe, orient, decide, act thing, without any previous showing she actually followed that mantra. Clearly she had already failed the first step of observe when first befriending Grant without knowing what was wrong with the guy. Then it all turned to shit. Well, the gory scenes are distasteful enough for the genre but it went from 0 to 100 real quick. You've shown the creature too soon and made the danger clear and present. I did like how you wrote the action scene and included the mantra in how she'd overcome the danger. Still, by making the monster this easy to 'handle' you cheapened the horror aspect. Yeah it's disgusting, but is it scary if a teen girl can simply stick a knife into it and walk on as if nothing happened? This effectively places your 'monster' below even an unwanted pregnancy in actual horror scales, because then she'd actually have to wait 9 months rather than these mere minutes. That feeling, of lowered stakes, persisted throughout the next scenes, where the girls read the big and evil book. I think you could've dug deeper into the corruption here. Instead of Charlotte turning (who I didn't like as a character anyway) it should've been Tiara and hammered home on the body horror aspect. Would've done a lot to put the danger back in the story anyway. Like yeah you handled the monster easily, but can you handle the book? Perhaps that was true danger after all. Now it's just relegated to a sad sack of paper ready to be munched on by some retard. In any case the writing in this piece is better than the previous entry and here the protagonist actually acts, having more depth both to her observations, reactions and how she handles the scene. Writing 4/5 Prompt 3/5 Enter's Whim -1 Total 6/10 B won. Congrats.