Ceramic Dm (final judgement posted, New Champion announced!)
- Thread starter alsih2o
- Start date
Macbeth
First Post
Rpggirl and Rodrigo istilandir, you have my condolences.
Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
alsih2o said:
Did I wrong you in a past life, alsh2o? Um, this will be interesting.
GW
Ao the Overkitty
First Post
Ummm.... oh my.... those are interesting pictures.alsih2o said:
kinda sad I won't see orchid's face when she sees them in the morning. Was a long ride back from the Mass gameday.
I do think her responce is going to be, "Why couldn't I get Rpggirl & Rodrigo's pictures???"
Last edited:
carpedavid
First Post
Round 2, Match 1: CarpeDavid vs BardStephenFox
The Strange Tale of Arthur Peddington
Dear Charles,
I write to you this evening, in the hope that, once you regain the use of your faculties, you will be able to verify my account of the dreadful circumstances surrounding the loss of our expeditionary party. As the only other survivor of the voyage, you are in a unique position to confirm the veracity of events that, in any other circumstance, would be considered the work of one of those dreadful pulp authors that are so popular these days.
You may ask why I must commit these words to paper, when there is the greatest possibility that you may never emerge from your current state. To answer you, I must begin by relating the events that occurred this very evening, in the same room from which I am now writing.
I was sitting in my study, enjoying a cup of gunpowder tea, when I heard a knock on our front door. As my legs are still weak, and walking is sometimes painful, my wife answered the door in my stead, returning after only a minute with a parcel wrapped in brown paper and bound with twine. She then bid me goodnight and retired for the evening, leaving me to my paperwork.
Using the metal shears that I keep for the opening of packages, I snipped the twine and unwrapped the paper. Without much thought, I lifted the lid and placed it to the side, but when I looked down in the box, I did not find a sheaf of academic papers to be read. Indeed what was in the box defies logic and reason, and I sat for more than an hour with my mouth agape before I could force myself to comprehend it. In the bottom of the box, pinned to whiteboard like a butterfly or moth, was a human face - complete and undamaged [faceoff.jpg].
But I write too much too quickly, for, in order for you to comprehend whose disembodied face stared back at me, you must remember the events that transpired on our excursion to Peru.
It was at the end of August that you, Pickman, and I left Arkham with a group of eight graduate students. At the time, of course, I was delighted to have been selected, since we linguists don't get out into the field much. Pickman was eager to catalog the esoteric artwork of the ancient Incans, and so was as much delighted as I. Now of course, I wish I had never heard of the damned Incans, a sentiment I'm sure Pickman would share, were he still alive.
Again, though, I get ahead of myself. Let me state the facts as I know them. The eleven of us set sail from Boston on the 28th of August, and spent the next two weeks at sea, passing through the newly-built canal, then landing in Lima on the 11th of September. From there, we spent another week riding into the Peruvian Andes. Along the way, I spent time cataloging different dialects of Quechua, the language shared by the ancient Incans and the modern Andeans.
Pickman spent his time making sketches of the native artwork. Because his artwork often possesses a grotesque quality, I was impressed at how accurately he was able to capture the beauty of Andean craftsmanship. Of all the information that we collected though, it was the tale that you recorded from the kite flyer that now seems most prescient.
The old fellow was attempting to launch a kite shaped like an enormous crow as you approached him, [battyoldman.jpg] and it snapped up into the air as a gust of wind came out of nowhere. When asked about the cultural significance of the kite, he told us of the Cusco, an ancient race of giant birds from the lands among the stars, who could take the forms of men, and possessed advanced knowledge. It was they who founded the Incan empire, who taught mankind how to build the pyramids, and who the Incan capitol was named after.
The Cusco, he claimed, still watched over the Andean people, and protected them from outsiders who wished to exploit them. They had the power, he warned, to know everything about you if they were able to collect even a single strand of your hair. Ah, Charles, if only we had heeded his warning, instead of chalking it up to a regional superstition, as we always do. Think of where we would be now.
At the end of the first week, we finally reached the unexplored jungle. Based on the maps provided by previous expeditions, you had mapped out a course that you believed would provide the greatest chance to find lost ruins. You lead the initial charge that first day, cutting a path with your machete, while Pickman kept showing me his sketches of flowers with giant, colorful blossoms. I was delighted to see him so enthralled with a subject that didn't have its origins in the realm of nightmare. The students did a commendable job of transporting our equipment along the difficult terrain, and I attempted to help whenever possible, even though I am not one accustomed to strenuous physical effort.
The first night sleeping in the wild was both exciting and frightening. The sounds of civilization had faded long ago, so the jungle noises were especially audible - we all slept fitfully that evening. After the second day, though, we were all tired enough to sleep soundly, blocking out the sound of the monkeys jumping through the trees.
The moon was waxing, which allowed some light to filter through the jungle canopy, and I awoke while it was near its apex after feeling something poke my head. I opened my eyes to see what looked like a man-sized bird standing over me. As I scrambled for my spectacles, though, the figure took flight - I could feel the wind generated by its wing against my face. By the time I was able to clearly see, it was gone, having flown up over the treetops at a rapid pace.
I could feel my heart pumping rapidly. What had I just seen? Without the benefit of my spectacles, I could not be sure even of its size. It had certainly seemed large, as I stared up at it, but it might have been a trick of perspective. I convinced myself that it was some form of native vulture, searching for a late-evening meal. When I mentioned it the next morning, and both you and Pickman related similar experiences and conclusions, I felt relieved.
By the afternoon of the fifth day, I was beginning to wish I had rejected your offer. The air, thick and humid, was taking a toll on my delicate New England constitution, and the mosquitoes, which were covering all of us in welts, weren't helping. I was about to suggest that we stop for a break when Pickman and I heard you yell. We pushed up the path, and discovered that the ground fell away. At first I thought you had fallen, but, looking down, I realized that you were rapidly descending of your own accord.
As I peered over your shoulder, I could see what had made you so excited: filling the valley below us was a vast, stone city [topofthemorning.jpg], proudly standing in defiance of centuries of disuse. I think we three were all giddy, as you, Pickman, and I scrambled down that cliff face. Surely this is how Bingham must have felt when he discovered Machu Picchu not three years ago! The prospect of discovering our own lost city made us reckless, and led to our first error.
Instead of instructing the students to find a more suitable course of descent, we ordered them to bring the supplies down using ropes and pulleys. It was during this activity that Martin Whately, of the Whateleys of Dunwich, slipped and fractured his femur. His screams of pain echoed through the stone corridors of that valley city, and it wasn't until we administered morphine that he was able to calm down.
Fearing that harm might befall more students, we left them to take care of Whately while we made a cursory examination of the ruins. At the time, we marveled that the jungle had not encroached on this city in the least. Bingham had spent months cutting back overgrowth at the Lost City of the Andes, but we had no need for even a cursory use of the machete.
I believe I saw the great pyramid first. I rounded a corner, and there it was, standing in the middle of a grand plaza. A grand staircase led from base to top, and nearly every inch was covered in carvings of birdlike creatures. Pickman gasped, while you, I recall, let out a squeal of glee.
Pickman stayed behind to make drawings of the carvings while we climbed the ninety-one stairs to the top. From our new vantage point, we had a fantastic view of the city. The streets radiated out from the plaza like spokes from a wheel, with circular connecting passages. Behind us, the setting sun burned a bright gold-orange, causing the pyramid to cast a massive shadow that stretched the breadth of the plaza.
We remained at the top for a long while, I think, enjoying the magnificence of our discovery. When we finally climbed back down, the sun had nearly set, and Pickman had already lit his lantern. I lit a torch off of his lantern, and suggested that we return to the students, when Pickman informed us of a discovery he had made.
Leading us around the corner of the pyramid, he pointed to an opening in the base, sealed by a rectangular stone door. You should have seen your eyes at that moment. They were wide in wonder, and you reminded me of baby just discovering the world.
"Have you opened it?" you asked.
"I tried, but it's too heavy for me alone," Pickman replied.
"Well, then, let's the three of us take a crack," I suggested, and the three of us pressed our shoulders against it. With a hefty push, the door slid back, and we stumbled through. You, Charles, lit your own lantern and held it aloft. Oh, now, how I wish you hadn't, for we would never have known what was inside.
The lantern illuminated a large chamber that was lined with glass tubes, and each was filled with the body of a human. We crept around the edge of the chamber, peering at each of the figures as we passed. All of them possessed Andean features and skin color, though all ages seemed to be represented equally. There were more women than men, and each tube had a label affixed to it that appeared to be etched with a script I was unfamiliar with.
It wasn't until we had circumnavigated the entire chamber that we found the eleven bodies that were not of Andean appearance. Indeed, each was of a Caucasian male. They should not have existed, but there they were, mocking everything we knew about the natural world: perfect representations of our entire expedition party.
Pickman acted first, smashing the tubes and emptying his lantern oil on the bodies. I followed his action by applying my torch, setting the simulacrums alight. I know that, as a man of science, I should want to know why they were there, but I feel no remorse. Reality simply cannot abide that kind of abomination.
As we ran back through the streets of terrible city, I felt certain that we were being watched, that bird-shaped figures were moving in the shadows. We emerged from the city at a breakneck pace, and slowed only when we came within sight of our students. Retreat was paramount, that was obvious, but we could no longer return up the cliff, due to Whately's broken leg.
Fortunately, one of the enterprising students had fashioned a sedan from two young trees and a supply box. We gave him more morphine, handed him a lantern, and then hefted the entire contraption up onto our shoulders. You, Charles, kept a level head, and were able to visualize an alternate route back to our original path.
As we carried Whately away from the city, the clear night sky began to cloud over. We were an hour into the jungle when the heavens opened up, and the rain began to fall. The ground became muddy, and we almost dropped Whately twice before we came to the river. On the other side was freedom: the path we had cleared on our approach. In our way, however, was a river quickly swelling from the pouring rain.
We pushed forward, the sedan held high above our heads. The water roared past our chests as we struggled toward the other side. Suddenly, one student slipped, and the current ripped him away. After ten more feet, another one slipped, and disappeared beneath the surface, and the whole sedan dropped to one side.
Whately screamed as he slammed to one side, and then screamed again when the lantern broke, spilling oil everywhere. Suddenly the sedan and Whately were both in flames, as we struggled with all our might against the raging river [needalight.jpg]. We had no choice, but to give Whately up.
As the rest of the party collapsed on the other side of the river, I realized that this must have been the work of the bird-men. If they had the technology to make copies of men, what other terrible science did they possess? The ability to harness weather certainly seemed within their grasp.
We ran back through the jungle. It took us two days.
I don't know why I had thought we'd be safe once aboard the ship. I guess I thought we'd outrun them. I remember that we spent the first two days in mute shock. Pickman kept to his room, while you sat on the deck, starting up at the sky.
Then on the third night, they found us again. A storm swept in from the south, pounding the ship with wind and rain. The sea became choppy, rocking the ship to and fro, which finally brought Pickman from his room. I remember that he said nothing to either of us as he lurched toward the rail.
The captain advised us to return to our rooms, but I don't think any of us were prepared to be alone at that point. The storm increased in intensity, and the power of the sea grew stronger. Waves broke over the bow, soaking the deck, and chilling me to my core.
In a flash of lightning, I saw our doom: a great, skeletal beast hovering over the ship [cold.jpg]. With one clawed limb it grabbed Pickman from his position at the rail, and tore him in half, tossing the remnants into the sea. I tried to scream, to warn the others, but the sound of thunder and crashing waves drowned me out.
Lighting lit the scene again, and I saw the boney beast grab the captain and snap him in two. It tore into the ship next, rending the hull with its claws. The sound of metal tearing pierced the air as the ship lurched to one side. I saw one of the students fall into the sea, and knew that he was gone.
I screamed and screamed, and fell into the sea.
The doctors say that we were floating for a full week before the rescue vessel finally located us. We were dehydrated, starving, and baked from the sun. It took fourteen days before I regained consciousness, and I'm told that my wife sat by my side the whole time. It is only with her help that I have recently managed to return to my post at the University.
To return to the scenario that prompted my correspondence in the first place: surely the sight of a human face, removed from its host, and pinned to a board, would be enough to cause anyone to question his own sanity. In this case, however, this hideous encounter prompted exactly the opposite speculation. For the past month, I have been desperately clinging to the explanation that my recollection of our excursion had been delusional in nature, induced by the dehydration we suffered while adrift at sea. Indeed, I had nearly managed to push the events from my mind before tonight, but now I am sure that they occurred precisely as I remember them.
For you see, Charles, the face that arrived in the parcel this evening...it was mine!
The Strange Tale of Arthur Peddington
Dear Charles,
I write to you this evening, in the hope that, once you regain the use of your faculties, you will be able to verify my account of the dreadful circumstances surrounding the loss of our expeditionary party. As the only other survivor of the voyage, you are in a unique position to confirm the veracity of events that, in any other circumstance, would be considered the work of one of those dreadful pulp authors that are so popular these days.
You may ask why I must commit these words to paper, when there is the greatest possibility that you may never emerge from your current state. To answer you, I must begin by relating the events that occurred this very evening, in the same room from which I am now writing.
I was sitting in my study, enjoying a cup of gunpowder tea, when I heard a knock on our front door. As my legs are still weak, and walking is sometimes painful, my wife answered the door in my stead, returning after only a minute with a parcel wrapped in brown paper and bound with twine. She then bid me goodnight and retired for the evening, leaving me to my paperwork.
Using the metal shears that I keep for the opening of packages, I snipped the twine and unwrapped the paper. Without much thought, I lifted the lid and placed it to the side, but when I looked down in the box, I did not find a sheaf of academic papers to be read. Indeed what was in the box defies logic and reason, and I sat for more than an hour with my mouth agape before I could force myself to comprehend it. In the bottom of the box, pinned to whiteboard like a butterfly or moth, was a human face - complete and undamaged [faceoff.jpg].
But I write too much too quickly, for, in order for you to comprehend whose disembodied face stared back at me, you must remember the events that transpired on our excursion to Peru.
***
It was at the end of August that you, Pickman, and I left Arkham with a group of eight graduate students. At the time, of course, I was delighted to have been selected, since we linguists don't get out into the field much. Pickman was eager to catalog the esoteric artwork of the ancient Incans, and so was as much delighted as I. Now of course, I wish I had never heard of the damned Incans, a sentiment I'm sure Pickman would share, were he still alive.
Again, though, I get ahead of myself. Let me state the facts as I know them. The eleven of us set sail from Boston on the 28th of August, and spent the next two weeks at sea, passing through the newly-built canal, then landing in Lima on the 11th of September. From there, we spent another week riding into the Peruvian Andes. Along the way, I spent time cataloging different dialects of Quechua, the language shared by the ancient Incans and the modern Andeans.
Pickman spent his time making sketches of the native artwork. Because his artwork often possesses a grotesque quality, I was impressed at how accurately he was able to capture the beauty of Andean craftsmanship. Of all the information that we collected though, it was the tale that you recorded from the kite flyer that now seems most prescient.
The old fellow was attempting to launch a kite shaped like an enormous crow as you approached him, [battyoldman.jpg] and it snapped up into the air as a gust of wind came out of nowhere. When asked about the cultural significance of the kite, he told us of the Cusco, an ancient race of giant birds from the lands among the stars, who could take the forms of men, and possessed advanced knowledge. It was they who founded the Incan empire, who taught mankind how to build the pyramids, and who the Incan capitol was named after.
The Cusco, he claimed, still watched over the Andean people, and protected them from outsiders who wished to exploit them. They had the power, he warned, to know everything about you if they were able to collect even a single strand of your hair. Ah, Charles, if only we had heeded his warning, instead of chalking it up to a regional superstition, as we always do. Think of where we would be now.
At the end of the first week, we finally reached the unexplored jungle. Based on the maps provided by previous expeditions, you had mapped out a course that you believed would provide the greatest chance to find lost ruins. You lead the initial charge that first day, cutting a path with your machete, while Pickman kept showing me his sketches of flowers with giant, colorful blossoms. I was delighted to see him so enthralled with a subject that didn't have its origins in the realm of nightmare. The students did a commendable job of transporting our equipment along the difficult terrain, and I attempted to help whenever possible, even though I am not one accustomed to strenuous physical effort.
The first night sleeping in the wild was both exciting and frightening. The sounds of civilization had faded long ago, so the jungle noises were especially audible - we all slept fitfully that evening. After the second day, though, we were all tired enough to sleep soundly, blocking out the sound of the monkeys jumping through the trees.
The moon was waxing, which allowed some light to filter through the jungle canopy, and I awoke while it was near its apex after feeling something poke my head. I opened my eyes to see what looked like a man-sized bird standing over me. As I scrambled for my spectacles, though, the figure took flight - I could feel the wind generated by its wing against my face. By the time I was able to clearly see, it was gone, having flown up over the treetops at a rapid pace.
I could feel my heart pumping rapidly. What had I just seen? Without the benefit of my spectacles, I could not be sure even of its size. It had certainly seemed large, as I stared up at it, but it might have been a trick of perspective. I convinced myself that it was some form of native vulture, searching for a late-evening meal. When I mentioned it the next morning, and both you and Pickman related similar experiences and conclusions, I felt relieved.
By the afternoon of the fifth day, I was beginning to wish I had rejected your offer. The air, thick and humid, was taking a toll on my delicate New England constitution, and the mosquitoes, which were covering all of us in welts, weren't helping. I was about to suggest that we stop for a break when Pickman and I heard you yell. We pushed up the path, and discovered that the ground fell away. At first I thought you had fallen, but, looking down, I realized that you were rapidly descending of your own accord.
As I peered over your shoulder, I could see what had made you so excited: filling the valley below us was a vast, stone city [topofthemorning.jpg], proudly standing in defiance of centuries of disuse. I think we three were all giddy, as you, Pickman, and I scrambled down that cliff face. Surely this is how Bingham must have felt when he discovered Machu Picchu not three years ago! The prospect of discovering our own lost city made us reckless, and led to our first error.
Instead of instructing the students to find a more suitable course of descent, we ordered them to bring the supplies down using ropes and pulleys. It was during this activity that Martin Whately, of the Whateleys of Dunwich, slipped and fractured his femur. His screams of pain echoed through the stone corridors of that valley city, and it wasn't until we administered morphine that he was able to calm down.
Fearing that harm might befall more students, we left them to take care of Whately while we made a cursory examination of the ruins. At the time, we marveled that the jungle had not encroached on this city in the least. Bingham had spent months cutting back overgrowth at the Lost City of the Andes, but we had no need for even a cursory use of the machete.
I believe I saw the great pyramid first. I rounded a corner, and there it was, standing in the middle of a grand plaza. A grand staircase led from base to top, and nearly every inch was covered in carvings of birdlike creatures. Pickman gasped, while you, I recall, let out a squeal of glee.
Pickman stayed behind to make drawings of the carvings while we climbed the ninety-one stairs to the top. From our new vantage point, we had a fantastic view of the city. The streets radiated out from the plaza like spokes from a wheel, with circular connecting passages. Behind us, the setting sun burned a bright gold-orange, causing the pyramid to cast a massive shadow that stretched the breadth of the plaza.
We remained at the top for a long while, I think, enjoying the magnificence of our discovery. When we finally climbed back down, the sun had nearly set, and Pickman had already lit his lantern. I lit a torch off of his lantern, and suggested that we return to the students, when Pickman informed us of a discovery he had made.
Leading us around the corner of the pyramid, he pointed to an opening in the base, sealed by a rectangular stone door. You should have seen your eyes at that moment. They were wide in wonder, and you reminded me of baby just discovering the world.
"Have you opened it?" you asked.
"I tried, but it's too heavy for me alone," Pickman replied.
"Well, then, let's the three of us take a crack," I suggested, and the three of us pressed our shoulders against it. With a hefty push, the door slid back, and we stumbled through. You, Charles, lit your own lantern and held it aloft. Oh, now, how I wish you hadn't, for we would never have known what was inside.
The lantern illuminated a large chamber that was lined with glass tubes, and each was filled with the body of a human. We crept around the edge of the chamber, peering at each of the figures as we passed. All of them possessed Andean features and skin color, though all ages seemed to be represented equally. There were more women than men, and each tube had a label affixed to it that appeared to be etched with a script I was unfamiliar with.
It wasn't until we had circumnavigated the entire chamber that we found the eleven bodies that were not of Andean appearance. Indeed, each was of a Caucasian male. They should not have existed, but there they were, mocking everything we knew about the natural world: perfect representations of our entire expedition party.
Pickman acted first, smashing the tubes and emptying his lantern oil on the bodies. I followed his action by applying my torch, setting the simulacrums alight. I know that, as a man of science, I should want to know why they were there, but I feel no remorse. Reality simply cannot abide that kind of abomination.
As we ran back through the streets of terrible city, I felt certain that we were being watched, that bird-shaped figures were moving in the shadows. We emerged from the city at a breakneck pace, and slowed only when we came within sight of our students. Retreat was paramount, that was obvious, but we could no longer return up the cliff, due to Whately's broken leg.
Fortunately, one of the enterprising students had fashioned a sedan from two young trees and a supply box. We gave him more morphine, handed him a lantern, and then hefted the entire contraption up onto our shoulders. You, Charles, kept a level head, and were able to visualize an alternate route back to our original path.
As we carried Whately away from the city, the clear night sky began to cloud over. We were an hour into the jungle when the heavens opened up, and the rain began to fall. The ground became muddy, and we almost dropped Whately twice before we came to the river. On the other side was freedom: the path we had cleared on our approach. In our way, however, was a river quickly swelling from the pouring rain.
We pushed forward, the sedan held high above our heads. The water roared past our chests as we struggled toward the other side. Suddenly, one student slipped, and the current ripped him away. After ten more feet, another one slipped, and disappeared beneath the surface, and the whole sedan dropped to one side.
Whately screamed as he slammed to one side, and then screamed again when the lantern broke, spilling oil everywhere. Suddenly the sedan and Whately were both in flames, as we struggled with all our might against the raging river [needalight.jpg]. We had no choice, but to give Whately up.
As the rest of the party collapsed on the other side of the river, I realized that this must have been the work of the bird-men. If they had the technology to make copies of men, what other terrible science did they possess? The ability to harness weather certainly seemed within their grasp.
We ran back through the jungle. It took us two days.
***
I don't know why I had thought we'd be safe once aboard the ship. I guess I thought we'd outrun them. I remember that we spent the first two days in mute shock. Pickman kept to his room, while you sat on the deck, starting up at the sky.
Then on the third night, they found us again. A storm swept in from the south, pounding the ship with wind and rain. The sea became choppy, rocking the ship to and fro, which finally brought Pickman from his room. I remember that he said nothing to either of us as he lurched toward the rail.
The captain advised us to return to our rooms, but I don't think any of us were prepared to be alone at that point. The storm increased in intensity, and the power of the sea grew stronger. Waves broke over the bow, soaking the deck, and chilling me to my core.
In a flash of lightning, I saw our doom: a great, skeletal beast hovering over the ship [cold.jpg]. With one clawed limb it grabbed Pickman from his position at the rail, and tore him in half, tossing the remnants into the sea. I tried to scream, to warn the others, but the sound of thunder and crashing waves drowned me out.
Lighting lit the scene again, and I saw the boney beast grab the captain and snap him in two. It tore into the ship next, rending the hull with its claws. The sound of metal tearing pierced the air as the ship lurched to one side. I saw one of the students fall into the sea, and knew that he was gone.
I screamed and screamed, and fell into the sea.
***
The doctors say that we were floating for a full week before the rescue vessel finally located us. We were dehydrated, starving, and baked from the sun. It took fourteen days before I regained consciousness, and I'm told that my wife sat by my side the whole time. It is only with her help that I have recently managed to return to my post at the University.
To return to the scenario that prompted my correspondence in the first place: surely the sight of a human face, removed from its host, and pinned to a board, would be enough to cause anyone to question his own sanity. In this case, however, this hideous encounter prompted exactly the opposite speculation. For the past month, I have been desperately clinging to the explanation that my recollection of our excursion had been delusional in nature, induced by the dehydration we suffered while adrift at sea. Indeed, I had nearly managed to push the events from my mind before tonight, but now I am sure that they occurred precisely as I remember them.
For you see, Charles, the face that arrived in the parcel this evening...it was mine!
orchid blossom
Explorer
Ao the Overkitty said:
Well, if I was going to wish for someone else's set, I'd take Macbeth and Berandors. I had a story for those almost immediately. These will take more work, but a challenge is good. (and if I repeat that over and over I might believe it.)
I couldn't believe it. We get home from the gameday last night and the boards are down, on purpose! But I think it's a good thing I didn't see these before I went to bed, I would have had weird, weird dreams.
alsih2o
First Post
Berandor Vs. Macbeth
From here on out I am gonna be mixing the order of judgements. J
Alsih2o-
Macbeth “The g(u)ilt hanging over me. Man, what a line. “All of it tightly packed into little bricks of protein. The building blocks of a new life.” I love this one too. I also like the repetition, I don’t particularly think it is great writing, but I do it myself and find it comforting…mostly.
Take the DMS-IV, I would have liked to have been shown him looking through it rather than hearing him talk about it. The picture use is pretty solid, I like the brick interpretation a lot and the double layers in a lot of the meanings of words.
I really enjoyed this. The tension of the backwardness, the repeats. Nice story old man.
Berandor Gives us a conflict in the first session I can really sink my teeth into, his disgust and love for those around him is really attention grabbing.
I really enjoyed the use of Sialas green pic, and the “Walker” . The d-blocker pic is an example of not good but fantastic pic use.
The end slammed me, I expected more. But unlike most abrupt endings it slammed me in a good way. This is a strong, strong story and I hope it survives past this competition.
Judgement- Berandor, Macbeth did a lot right, but Berandor did it all right.
Barsoomcore-
Macbeth "Guilt"
A backwards story. I'm not often a fan of these, because nine times out
of ten the reason the story is backwards is because the story lacks
tension and by telling it backwards the writer exchanges tension for
mystery. Which is an inferior form of suspense.
This story is essentially a mystery about why our narrator has bad
dreams. We read the story in order to get the explanation. If you'd
told the story in the temporal order of events, there would be no
mystery -- we'd know why he has bad dreams. There would also be no
tension, and that's the primary problem with this story. No tension.
Just mystery.
Here's what Rust Hills has to say about mystery: "The trouble with
mystery as a structure is that the writer enters into competition with
the reader instead of partnership."
(by the way, if you haven't read Rust Hills' book On Writing in
General and the Short Story in Particular, you are missing one of
best books ever written about writing stories)
The only reason for us to read this story is to discover the source of
the narrator's bad dreams. Your goal, then, is to delay that revelation
until the end of the story -- which puts you and your readers at odds.
It turns your story into a game rather than an emotional experience.
The reverse order of events reinforces that notion by forcing me to
"meta-read" and put things together outside of the story.
As a general rule, if a story's not worth telling in "natural" order,
it's probably not worth telling at all.
Another problem for me is the repeating dream. If you're going to
structure a story around a repeating event, you need to make clear what
effect each repetition has. Each one needs to provide a distinctive
emotional transition and each one needs to build on the one previous.
The individual dreams here don't seem to do that -- they just repeat
the same themes over again. There appears to be no reason for them to
be in the order they are in -- I think I could switch them around and
the story wouldn't change any. That means they're unnecessary, and you
should never make your readers read unnecessary words.
That said, it's an ambitious effort, the pictures are creatively used,
and your writing is fine (though I wonder if you meant "yoke" or
"yolk"). I'm questioning the nature of the story and the structure you
chose to tell it, rather than the writing itself.
Thank you, though. I enjoyed reading it.
Berandor "Rememberance"
Okay, a pretty straightforward "coward gets a second chance" story.
Nothing wrong with that. It's pretty long -- the various conversations
are all (especially the one with Marcus) quite a bit longer than they
need to be. Indeed, I thought you could drop the entire scene with
Marcus. Go from the bust to the meeting with Arnold Webster -- we'll
fill in the gaps.
Some of the formatting is a little weird -- there's varying spaces
between paragraphs that I don't get. If that was meant to communicate
anything it slipped past me.
I like the family relationships established at the beginning. It's
believable and cruel and mundane. Very engrossing. I wish that it had
paid off a little more at the end, however. Likewise the characters of
Marcus and Webster -- how do they serve the story?
This sentence: "He realised he'd used his family to shield him from his
guilt" -- I don't think you really earn this sentence. I think that in
order to get away with such a moralistic statement you need to have
DEMONSTRATED it to us before we read it. We should read that sentence
nodding to ourselves, thinking, "Yes, of course, that's exactly what's
he's done." It should illuminate the story you've just told rather than
provide us with new information about Jason's state of mind.
Picture use is pretty good except for the walking wheel -- that one's a
bit of a throwaway. I'd also like to have seen a stronger use of the
barge, but the girl and the "d-blocker" are both excellent and carry us
right on through. Giving us a hint through the pictures themselves is
also clever -- you make a point of saying Rose is blond, when anyone
can see the little girl in the picture is dark. Nice.
All in all, the story is competent, though it skates over the emotional
surfaces of things rather than diving right in and really shaking us
up. It needs tightening, and it needs more attention paid to the
relationships between events in the story, but this is a solid entry. I
enjoyed it. Thanks.
Decision: Berandor
Mythago-
Both of the stories are diamonds in the rough.
GUILT (Macbeth)
The repetitive style was probably meant to show the narrator's
slipping sanity, but unfortunately it crossed the line from "weird" to
"annoying." There were times when I found myself skipping ahead
because the guy's mental dialogue just wasn't very interesting.
The idea of the dream, to the reality, to the shattered dream, was
confusing; was the guy seeing a vision sent by the village? Did he
have some kind of strange foresight? It's very vague and angsty and we
don't really see what's going on. The theme of the first picture was
nicely woven in with its re-appearances; the ball was nearly a
throwaway. The bricks = meat didn't make sense to me--why was the guy
supposed to have tested it (and how?) and, well duh, if you carry
slabs of meat around in hot, tropical air, they're going to go bad. I
like the idea you have behind the sequence, but not the execution
The line from Hamlet makes it sound as though the narrator is dying,
or at least that there's some connection between the beginning and the
end, but there really isn't other than the narrator having bad dreams.
He sounds pretty sane by the end.
So, there's a core of an interesting story in there, but the style and
the picture use feel like they've been very artificially sprayed on.
REMEMBERANCE (Berandor)
The story starts out, I'm sorry to say, in a very uninteresting
fashion. It screams "hi, I'm the author and I'm trying to frontload
information about this character." We get similar frontloading in the
description of the walking wheel.
I was also not understanding what was up with the wife and daughter
having the mutation. Is there a gene bomb? Surely if Gardiner is that
repulsed, he wouldn't have had a child with a woman he loathed; her
feelings about his repulsion didn't sprout overnight (sorry). And the
sudden appearance of the MDU is convenient.
The story doesn't pick up steam until after Gardiner gets out of jail.
Why he never suspects his contact is a mutant, I'm not sure, but at
least the interaction between the two is interesting. Now Gardiner is
the one trying to do right and the mutant is the one causing problems.
The climax of the story, with Gardiner accepting his family is dead
and making amends by caring for "Rose," is very powerful, and the use
of the picture is reasonable.
Judgment to BERANDOR for an overall more cohesive tale and better picture use.
Decision, Berandor 3-0
From here on out I am gonna be mixing the order of judgements. J
Alsih2o-
Macbeth “The g(u)ilt hanging over me. Man, what a line. “All of it tightly packed into little bricks of protein. The building blocks of a new life.” I love this one too. I also like the repetition, I don’t particularly think it is great writing, but I do it myself and find it comforting…mostly.
Take the DMS-IV, I would have liked to have been shown him looking through it rather than hearing him talk about it. The picture use is pretty solid, I like the brick interpretation a lot and the double layers in a lot of the meanings of words.
I really enjoyed this. The tension of the backwardness, the repeats. Nice story old man.
Berandor Gives us a conflict in the first session I can really sink my teeth into, his disgust and love for those around him is really attention grabbing.
I really enjoyed the use of Sialas green pic, and the “Walker” . The d-blocker pic is an example of not good but fantastic pic use.
The end slammed me, I expected more. But unlike most abrupt endings it slammed me in a good way. This is a strong, strong story and I hope it survives past this competition.
Judgement- Berandor, Macbeth did a lot right, but Berandor did it all right.
Barsoomcore-
Macbeth "Guilt"
A backwards story. I'm not often a fan of these, because nine times out
of ten the reason the story is backwards is because the story lacks
tension and by telling it backwards the writer exchanges tension for
mystery. Which is an inferior form of suspense.
This story is essentially a mystery about why our narrator has bad
dreams. We read the story in order to get the explanation. If you'd
told the story in the temporal order of events, there would be no
mystery -- we'd know why he has bad dreams. There would also be no
tension, and that's the primary problem with this story. No tension.
Just mystery.
Here's what Rust Hills has to say about mystery: "The trouble with
mystery as a structure is that the writer enters into competition with
the reader instead of partnership."
(by the way, if you haven't read Rust Hills' book On Writing in
General and the Short Story in Particular, you are missing one of
best books ever written about writing stories)
The only reason for us to read this story is to discover the source of
the narrator's bad dreams. Your goal, then, is to delay that revelation
until the end of the story -- which puts you and your readers at odds.
It turns your story into a game rather than an emotional experience.
The reverse order of events reinforces that notion by forcing me to
"meta-read" and put things together outside of the story.
As a general rule, if a story's not worth telling in "natural" order,
it's probably not worth telling at all.
Another problem for me is the repeating dream. If you're going to
structure a story around a repeating event, you need to make clear what
effect each repetition has. Each one needs to provide a distinctive
emotional transition and each one needs to build on the one previous.
The individual dreams here don't seem to do that -- they just repeat
the same themes over again. There appears to be no reason for them to
be in the order they are in -- I think I could switch them around and
the story wouldn't change any. That means they're unnecessary, and you
should never make your readers read unnecessary words.
That said, it's an ambitious effort, the pictures are creatively used,
and your writing is fine (though I wonder if you meant "yoke" or
"yolk"). I'm questioning the nature of the story and the structure you
chose to tell it, rather than the writing itself.
Thank you, though. I enjoyed reading it.
Berandor "Rememberance"
Okay, a pretty straightforward "coward gets a second chance" story.
Nothing wrong with that. It's pretty long -- the various conversations
are all (especially the one with Marcus) quite a bit longer than they
need to be. Indeed, I thought you could drop the entire scene with
Marcus. Go from the bust to the meeting with Arnold Webster -- we'll
fill in the gaps.
Some of the formatting is a little weird -- there's varying spaces
between paragraphs that I don't get. If that was meant to communicate
anything it slipped past me.
I like the family relationships established at the beginning. It's
believable and cruel and mundane. Very engrossing. I wish that it had
paid off a little more at the end, however. Likewise the characters of
Marcus and Webster -- how do they serve the story?
This sentence: "He realised he'd used his family to shield him from his
guilt" -- I don't think you really earn this sentence. I think that in
order to get away with such a moralistic statement you need to have
DEMONSTRATED it to us before we read it. We should read that sentence
nodding to ourselves, thinking, "Yes, of course, that's exactly what's
he's done." It should illuminate the story you've just told rather than
provide us with new information about Jason's state of mind.
Picture use is pretty good except for the walking wheel -- that one's a
bit of a throwaway. I'd also like to have seen a stronger use of the
barge, but the girl and the "d-blocker" are both excellent and carry us
right on through. Giving us a hint through the pictures themselves is
also clever -- you make a point of saying Rose is blond, when anyone
can see the little girl in the picture is dark. Nice.
All in all, the story is competent, though it skates over the emotional
surfaces of things rather than diving right in and really shaking us
up. It needs tightening, and it needs more attention paid to the
relationships between events in the story, but this is a solid entry. I
enjoyed it. Thanks.
Decision: Berandor
Mythago-
Both of the stories are diamonds in the rough.
GUILT (Macbeth)
The repetitive style was probably meant to show the narrator's
slipping sanity, but unfortunately it crossed the line from "weird" to
"annoying." There were times when I found myself skipping ahead
because the guy's mental dialogue just wasn't very interesting.
The idea of the dream, to the reality, to the shattered dream, was
confusing; was the guy seeing a vision sent by the village? Did he
have some kind of strange foresight? It's very vague and angsty and we
don't really see what's going on. The theme of the first picture was
nicely woven in with its re-appearances; the ball was nearly a
throwaway. The bricks = meat didn't make sense to me--why was the guy
supposed to have tested it (and how?) and, well duh, if you carry
slabs of meat around in hot, tropical air, they're going to go bad. I
like the idea you have behind the sequence, but not the execution
The line from Hamlet makes it sound as though the narrator is dying,
or at least that there's some connection between the beginning and the
end, but there really isn't other than the narrator having bad dreams.
He sounds pretty sane by the end.
So, there's a core of an interesting story in there, but the style and
the picture use feel like they've been very artificially sprayed on.
REMEMBERANCE (Berandor)
The story starts out, I'm sorry to say, in a very uninteresting
fashion. It screams "hi, I'm the author and I'm trying to frontload
information about this character." We get similar frontloading in the
description of the walking wheel.
I was also not understanding what was up with the wife and daughter
having the mutation. Is there a gene bomb? Surely if Gardiner is that
repulsed, he wouldn't have had a child with a woman he loathed; her
feelings about his repulsion didn't sprout overnight (sorry). And the
sudden appearance of the MDU is convenient.
The story doesn't pick up steam until after Gardiner gets out of jail.
Why he never suspects his contact is a mutant, I'm not sure, but at
least the interaction between the two is interesting. Now Gardiner is
the one trying to do right and the mutant is the one causing problems.
The climax of the story, with Gardiner accepting his family is dead
and making amends by caring for "Rose," is very powerful, and the use
of the picture is reasonable.
Judgment to BERANDOR for an overall more cohesive tale and better picture use.
Decision, Berandor 3-0
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