Ceramic DM -- Fall '06 ** yangnome wins! **
- Thread starter Rodrigo Istalindir
- Start date
GuardianLurker
Adventurer
It's going to be a quick jump to the finals then, I guess.
{trash}They are obviously so completely intimidated by my superiority that they realized the ultimate futility of their efforts. Kudos to my short opponent for having the courage to offer his composition against such overwhleming odds.{/trash}
[sblock]
For me, the exploding penguin was a way to explain picture #1. Why I linked those two, I have no idea. Honestly, it was the dyd vats that gave me the most trouble. Where did you get the idea for Secret Agent Drag Queen?
[/sblock]
{trash}They are obviously so completely intimidated by my superiority that they realized the ultimate futility of their efforts. Kudos to my short opponent for having the courage to offer his composition against such overwhleming odds.{/trash}
[sblock]
For me, the exploding penguin was a way to explain picture #1. Why I linked those two, I have no idea. Honestly, it was the dyd vats that gave me the most trouble. Where did you get the idea for Secret Agent Drag Queen?
[/sblock]
Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
Sure takes the burden off the judges.
maxfieldjadenfox
First Post
Wow, kids, what happened to the rest of you?
yangnome
First Post
Yep, my thought too. The judges have it easy this time around.GuardianLurker said:It's going to be a quick jump to the finals then, I guess.
{trash}They are obviously so completely intimidated by my superiority that they realized the ultimate futility of their efforts. Kudos to my short opponent for having the courage to offer his composition against such overwhleming odds.{/trash}
[sblock]
For me, the exploding penguin was a way to explain picture #1. Why I linked those two, I have no idea. Honestly, it was the dyd vats that gave me the most trouble. Where did you get the idea for Secret Agent Drag Queen?
[/sblock]
[sblock]Well, 'the penguin will self destruct in 10 seconds' line set the tone for a spy spoof story. I've been wanting to write something with humorous for practice since I want to write a humorous novel for this year's NaNo. Whether this one was humorous or not, I guess I'll have to leave it up to you. anyway, I had the spy story going, but after the self destructing penguin line, things didn't seem as funny. I also was getting tired of talking about the queen and at some point mid-story, I decided to use a little wordplay and make the story about a drag queen rather than a royal queen. I thik this inspiration came around the conversation with the chess player. Anyway, it sort of evolved from there. my intent (and granted it wasn't well planned, and I don't know how effective it was) was to gradually give hints to the fact that it was a drag queen instead of real royalty, changing from a political plot to comething more ridiculous. Liek I said, I don't know how successful it was. I hope it provided a laugh or two (or at least a smile) for the reader though. [/sblock]
Linderel
First Post
I am late. And probably not fashionably, either, but what the heck. I made it anyways. I almost gave up when I passed the time limit, but my evil friends wouldn't let me. So, hopefully this still counts. Roger, you're not winning by default at least.
I'm sucky and can't come up with a title this time around, either.
---
<u>Untitled</u>
"So, what are them glasses for, and the binoculars? You look weird."
Shelly smiled wearily at the boy standing in her doorway. It had to be admitted, she probably did look a bit funny with the huge glasses sitting on her face, especially with the small pair of binoculars attached to them(2).
"I'm going to the opera tonight, Roy. And if I want to see anything," she said, pointing to the combination, "I need to wear these. I was trying them out to see if they're alright."
His mouth opened in a small 'o' of understanding, and he raised the bag in his right hand for her to take.
Seeing her inquisitive look, he shrugged. "I got you some groceries, since I heard from Mary you've been stuck in here with a cold. You probably didn't have anything decent to eat, so..."
A thankful smile flitted across her face, and she patted the boy on his head, taking the plastic bag from him. Getting in a quick glance at his watch, she then frowned.
"You need to be getting home, young man. Shoo, shoo! I'll be seeing you tomorrow."
Grinning sheepishly, Roy left to run the stairs down and out to the street. Sighing, she stared at the empty hallway. She would have wanted to run after him, to ask him to come back and stay for a while, and she knew he would have obliged without a question.
She knew he sensed how lonely she sometimes could get, and that he'd do just about anything to help her. However, the boy had a little sister to take care of, his parents working long days and often going out of town on business. She'd feel guilty for holding him at her apartment.
Closing the door and moving to the couch, full of old magazines and used dishes, she sat down heavily and looked to the ceiling, taking the glasses off. Shelly knew from experience that if she stayed here for more than a few minutes, she'd lose sense of time and just sit there, lost in the deep dark pits of her mind. She would forget to leave for the opera, and wake up the next morning, aching all over, having fallen asleep in the most uncomfortable of positions.
She had been like that for a while. How long, exactly, she couldn't say. It seemed that lately, the only things anchoring her to reality were the semi-regular visits of her friends, especially Roy, going to the grocery shop next door when she realised she had nothing to eat, and her excursions to the opera.
My only joy.
She had a feeling it had been months, and her friends were probably getting worried. Shelly knew she was occasionally alarmed to notice how thin and pale she looked in the mirror, but then the dull feeling returned, and it didn't matter.
She sometimes thought that maybe she ought to get a job, but then again, money had never been a problem. She'd been wired money by some distant, super rich relative since the day she turned eighteen. The reasons for that had never been quite clear to her, but she wasn't complaining.
It really made staying home in her tiny apartment and wasting her life away that much easier. At least she didn't have to deal with people.
Dragging her knees up to her chin, she scooted back on the couch, laid her head on top of her crossed hands, and did her best to block the tiniest hints of the rest of the world out.
All be damned, she wasn't moving anywhere tonight.
In her dream, she was a bird, perhaps a pigeon, flying in the dark. She could see very little, yet all that she saw was tinted in red. For how long she flew, or where to, she didn't know, but at some point, something appeared before her. Strangely, she was calm, even though she would soon collide with the red, horned creature(1). Only at the very last second did she swerve to avoid it, and then there was nothing.
Shelly awoke with a start to the door crashing open, hitting the clothes rack and being slammed back shut. Before she could realise what was going on, she'd been efficiently captured by a ragged-looking man whose worn leather jacket reeked of cigarettes. She strained to get loose, but his grip on her arms was painfully tight.
"What the--mmph!" She was silenced by his palm and dragged out of the apartment, out of the house, and into a van. Her brain caught up with the situation, and her first impulse was to bite down on the hand blocking her mouth. Hard.
The precise level of smartness in following that impulse was found out a moment later, when the man punched her lights out. She thought she might have heard him say, "Good night, princess."
When she came to, she had to squint in the dim light, grasping her head as a dull ache cheerfully made itself known. As far as she could tell, she was in a large warehouse of some sort, surrounded by wooden boxes and quite a lot of dust. Quickly enough her gaze zeroed in on the man leaning on one of the boxes across from her with a smirk on his face. She considered summoning up the energy to glare, but before she could decide whether it was worth the effort, he'd walked to her and snatched the messy ponytail of her hair.
He grinned down at her. "Morning, princess. You certainly like sleeping, I thought you were gonna be out of it for two days straight. You missed the mark by a couple of hours..."
Somewhere, Shelly found the strength to bristle, twisting away from his touch and snapping her teeth at him for good measure. He only laughed, and patted her shoulder, squatting down before her. The smell of cigarettes was stronger than before, and she turned away.
"Now there, I think you might be wondering what the hell it is that I want from you. Money, sex? The answer is: nothing. Absolutely nothing."
Frowning at the words, she involuntarily turned to look at him, receiving another smirk at the action.
"That makes no sense, the princess thinks. Oh, but it makes perfect sense. Other people would love to see you naked and do unspeakable things to your body, or demand a fortune for your freedom, but me-- me, I simply want to watch you suffer. There's no grudge, just the wish to see you sink down to the deepest pits and then die.
"Don't you just love the sound of that? And what's even better, no one will miss you."
When she merely stared at him, feelings of indignity and rage and confusion battling for dominion and then overcome by an overwhelming sense of apathy, he stood up and turned sideways, preparing to walk away.
"Think about it. Would anyone really miss you if you simply disappeared, with no clues whatsoever of what happened to you? Would anyone care? Eh?"
She stared at him blankly, not responding, too tired to even defy him.
If you want to kill me, go ahead. It would be a win-win situation, because I just don't care anymore.
The man let out a snort riddled with contempt, and spat at her. "You're pathetic."
Days passed slowly, as she slipped in and out of consciousness. There was always the presence of the man pressing down on her, and if he hit her or did something else, she couldn't have said afterwards, but somehow, she had deep scratches on her arms and legs. He brought just enough food and water to keep her alive, but she had a feeling she usually threw it up immediately afterwards.
At some point, she noticed she didn't have anything on but her underwear, and the warehouse had been cold even with proper clothes. Shivering, she stared at the tiny bowl of mushroom soup on the floor and pondered if maybe the man could go inside her head and was mocking her. Dimly she acknowledged that this probably wasn't possible, but it felt like it could be.
She remembered the time she'd gone wandering in a forest after running away from home. It'd been the year she was eight, and that had been only one of her many rebellious attempts to leave the house, being highly disapproving of the fights between her parents. In her viewpoint, the adults had been very stupid indeed, and did not deserve to have a daughter until they came to their senses.
She had got lost, and feeling very miserable, curled up under a tree and fell asleep. Upon waking, sometime in the evening when it was already fairly dark, she noted that running away without any food had been a bad idea. Then she noticed the group of very cute, yellow mushrooms, dotted with red(4), sticking out from under fallen leaves, and, her stomach growling, decided they were her dinner.
After that, Shelly had sworn she'd never eat mushrooms again. She chuckled at the memory now, thinking how usually the only edible thing in her fridge was the box of shroom stew in the freezer section, being regularly provided to her by one of her friends who liked to cook and always cooked too much. Funny, that.
She picked at a scab on the back of her left hand, absently wondering whether she'd ever get out of here. Maybe not, or at least not before it was too late and she died of something. Her friends were already used to her withdrawing into a shell and not contacting anyone, sometimes for weeks at a time. At least she thought they were. She wasn't really sure.
They might have been. It probably didn't matter anyway, since no one could connect her disappearance to anything.
She'd just rot away in this warehouse. Nodding to herself, she curled up on the floor and tried to sleep despite the cold. It was as good a fate as any, as far as she was concerned.
The desert stretched out all around her, the sun glaring down, blisteringly hot and merciless. Off in the distance, she thought she might be seeing the ocean, but the horizon was far away, and she couldn't be sure(3). She felt oddly light, as if she was floating, and it might have been a dream. The place felt familiar, though, and with a jolt she realised she was looking at the image of her own soul.
There's an ocean?
Once again, Shelly woke up to the sound of a door crashing open, and for a second she thought that she should hide before she was taken again. Then someone was shaking her shoulder insistently, telling her to come to her senses and get up. Opening her eyes, she saw that the someone - a police officer - had a friendly, if rough, and a slightly worried face.
Even though only some hours ago she had been nearly indifferent, she felt relief flooding her with such power it would have made her knees weak, had she been standing.
It was over. She didn't know how, she didn't know why, but it was over, and she could spare just enough time to smile radiantly and than the officer before passing out.
Sinking low in the bathtub, Shelly hissed slightly in pain as the hot water stung at the scrapes on her arms and legs. She would have to put disinfectant and some salve into the biggest ones later, but for now, she was intent on enjoying her first bath after what felt like aeons. And when she was done with that, she was seriously going to stay in bed for a week.
Poking at a bruise, she thought on this idea. It seemed like a very good one, except that if she recalled correctly, she was all out of groceries that would actually still be edible.
"Damn," she muttered to herself. "There goes that plan. Ah well, I don't really feel like lazying around this pigsty." Shuddering at the image of her apartment, dancing quite unsummoned in her mind, Shelly resolved to get the place cleaned. Soon.
But first, the bath. And a good night's sleep.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing, and while she valiantly attempted to ignore the device, whoever was on the other end of the line was clearly very insistent. Sighing, she rose from the tub, tugged at the plug, and, without so much as grabbing a towel, the sound of water gurgling down to the drain accompanying her, zoomed to the phone to pick up.
"Shelly speaking."
"Where the hell have you been? Everyone's been worried sick something might have happened, are you okay?"
She blinked. Roy.
There was a hint of panic in the boy's voice. No doubt he was telling the truth. She was willing to bet he'd been biting his fingernails with fervour these past few days, like he always did when he was nervous. She found it, above anything else, endearing.
After trying to convince him that yes, she was perfectly alright, just a bit tired, and finally succeeding, he flung another barrage of questions at her, mainly concerning her whereabouts, and why hadn't she told anyone anything?
Shelly took a deep breath, hesitated a moment, and smiled to herself.
"Here and there. It's nothing exciting, really. You'd be bored to death by the story. Now, would you like to come to the opera with me tomorrow? It's more fun if I have company."
Fingering the binocular-glasses sitting on the table while finishing up the call, she resolved to try and keep the whole incident to herself. She didn't want her friends to know. They didn't need to, for this day and every day after would be beautiful and full of hope.
Only the future was left.
I'm sucky and can't come up with a title this time around, either.
---
<u>Untitled</u>
"So, what are them glasses for, and the binoculars? You look weird."
Shelly smiled wearily at the boy standing in her doorway. It had to be admitted, she probably did look a bit funny with the huge glasses sitting on her face, especially with the small pair of binoculars attached to them(2).
"I'm going to the opera tonight, Roy. And if I want to see anything," she said, pointing to the combination, "I need to wear these. I was trying them out to see if they're alright."
His mouth opened in a small 'o' of understanding, and he raised the bag in his right hand for her to take.
Seeing her inquisitive look, he shrugged. "I got you some groceries, since I heard from Mary you've been stuck in here with a cold. You probably didn't have anything decent to eat, so..."
A thankful smile flitted across her face, and she patted the boy on his head, taking the plastic bag from him. Getting in a quick glance at his watch, she then frowned.
"You need to be getting home, young man. Shoo, shoo! I'll be seeing you tomorrow."
Grinning sheepishly, Roy left to run the stairs down and out to the street. Sighing, she stared at the empty hallway. She would have wanted to run after him, to ask him to come back and stay for a while, and she knew he would have obliged without a question.
She knew he sensed how lonely she sometimes could get, and that he'd do just about anything to help her. However, the boy had a little sister to take care of, his parents working long days and often going out of town on business. She'd feel guilty for holding him at her apartment.
Closing the door and moving to the couch, full of old magazines and used dishes, she sat down heavily and looked to the ceiling, taking the glasses off. Shelly knew from experience that if she stayed here for more than a few minutes, she'd lose sense of time and just sit there, lost in the deep dark pits of her mind. She would forget to leave for the opera, and wake up the next morning, aching all over, having fallen asleep in the most uncomfortable of positions.
She had been like that for a while. How long, exactly, she couldn't say. It seemed that lately, the only things anchoring her to reality were the semi-regular visits of her friends, especially Roy, going to the grocery shop next door when she realised she had nothing to eat, and her excursions to the opera.
My only joy.
She had a feeling it had been months, and her friends were probably getting worried. Shelly knew she was occasionally alarmed to notice how thin and pale she looked in the mirror, but then the dull feeling returned, and it didn't matter.
She sometimes thought that maybe she ought to get a job, but then again, money had never been a problem. She'd been wired money by some distant, super rich relative since the day she turned eighteen. The reasons for that had never been quite clear to her, but she wasn't complaining.
It really made staying home in her tiny apartment and wasting her life away that much easier. At least she didn't have to deal with people.
Dragging her knees up to her chin, she scooted back on the couch, laid her head on top of her crossed hands, and did her best to block the tiniest hints of the rest of the world out.
All be damned, she wasn't moving anywhere tonight.
In her dream, she was a bird, perhaps a pigeon, flying in the dark. She could see very little, yet all that she saw was tinted in red. For how long she flew, or where to, she didn't know, but at some point, something appeared before her. Strangely, she was calm, even though she would soon collide with the red, horned creature(1). Only at the very last second did she swerve to avoid it, and then there was nothing.
Shelly awoke with a start to the door crashing open, hitting the clothes rack and being slammed back shut. Before she could realise what was going on, she'd been efficiently captured by a ragged-looking man whose worn leather jacket reeked of cigarettes. She strained to get loose, but his grip on her arms was painfully tight.
"What the--mmph!" She was silenced by his palm and dragged out of the apartment, out of the house, and into a van. Her brain caught up with the situation, and her first impulse was to bite down on the hand blocking her mouth. Hard.
The precise level of smartness in following that impulse was found out a moment later, when the man punched her lights out. She thought she might have heard him say, "Good night, princess."
When she came to, she had to squint in the dim light, grasping her head as a dull ache cheerfully made itself known. As far as she could tell, she was in a large warehouse of some sort, surrounded by wooden boxes and quite a lot of dust. Quickly enough her gaze zeroed in on the man leaning on one of the boxes across from her with a smirk on his face. She considered summoning up the energy to glare, but before she could decide whether it was worth the effort, he'd walked to her and snatched the messy ponytail of her hair.
He grinned down at her. "Morning, princess. You certainly like sleeping, I thought you were gonna be out of it for two days straight. You missed the mark by a couple of hours..."
Somewhere, Shelly found the strength to bristle, twisting away from his touch and snapping her teeth at him for good measure. He only laughed, and patted her shoulder, squatting down before her. The smell of cigarettes was stronger than before, and she turned away.
"Now there, I think you might be wondering what the hell it is that I want from you. Money, sex? The answer is: nothing. Absolutely nothing."
Frowning at the words, she involuntarily turned to look at him, receiving another smirk at the action.
"That makes no sense, the princess thinks. Oh, but it makes perfect sense. Other people would love to see you naked and do unspeakable things to your body, or demand a fortune for your freedom, but me-- me, I simply want to watch you suffer. There's no grudge, just the wish to see you sink down to the deepest pits and then die.
"Don't you just love the sound of that? And what's even better, no one will miss you."
When she merely stared at him, feelings of indignity and rage and confusion battling for dominion and then overcome by an overwhelming sense of apathy, he stood up and turned sideways, preparing to walk away.
"Think about it. Would anyone really miss you if you simply disappeared, with no clues whatsoever of what happened to you? Would anyone care? Eh?"
She stared at him blankly, not responding, too tired to even defy him.
If you want to kill me, go ahead. It would be a win-win situation, because I just don't care anymore.
The man let out a snort riddled with contempt, and spat at her. "You're pathetic."
Days passed slowly, as she slipped in and out of consciousness. There was always the presence of the man pressing down on her, and if he hit her or did something else, she couldn't have said afterwards, but somehow, she had deep scratches on her arms and legs. He brought just enough food and water to keep her alive, but she had a feeling she usually threw it up immediately afterwards.
At some point, she noticed she didn't have anything on but her underwear, and the warehouse had been cold even with proper clothes. Shivering, she stared at the tiny bowl of mushroom soup on the floor and pondered if maybe the man could go inside her head and was mocking her. Dimly she acknowledged that this probably wasn't possible, but it felt like it could be.
She remembered the time she'd gone wandering in a forest after running away from home. It'd been the year she was eight, and that had been only one of her many rebellious attempts to leave the house, being highly disapproving of the fights between her parents. In her viewpoint, the adults had been very stupid indeed, and did not deserve to have a daughter until they came to their senses.
She had got lost, and feeling very miserable, curled up under a tree and fell asleep. Upon waking, sometime in the evening when it was already fairly dark, she noted that running away without any food had been a bad idea. Then she noticed the group of very cute, yellow mushrooms, dotted with red(4), sticking out from under fallen leaves, and, her stomach growling, decided they were her dinner.
After that, Shelly had sworn she'd never eat mushrooms again. She chuckled at the memory now, thinking how usually the only edible thing in her fridge was the box of shroom stew in the freezer section, being regularly provided to her by one of her friends who liked to cook and always cooked too much. Funny, that.
She picked at a scab on the back of her left hand, absently wondering whether she'd ever get out of here. Maybe not, or at least not before it was too late and she died of something. Her friends were already used to her withdrawing into a shell and not contacting anyone, sometimes for weeks at a time. At least she thought they were. She wasn't really sure.
They might have been. It probably didn't matter anyway, since no one could connect her disappearance to anything.
She'd just rot away in this warehouse. Nodding to herself, she curled up on the floor and tried to sleep despite the cold. It was as good a fate as any, as far as she was concerned.
The desert stretched out all around her, the sun glaring down, blisteringly hot and merciless. Off in the distance, she thought she might be seeing the ocean, but the horizon was far away, and she couldn't be sure(3). She felt oddly light, as if she was floating, and it might have been a dream. The place felt familiar, though, and with a jolt she realised she was looking at the image of her own soul.
There's an ocean?
Once again, Shelly woke up to the sound of a door crashing open, and for a second she thought that she should hide before she was taken again. Then someone was shaking her shoulder insistently, telling her to come to her senses and get up. Opening her eyes, she saw that the someone - a police officer - had a friendly, if rough, and a slightly worried face.
Even though only some hours ago she had been nearly indifferent, she felt relief flooding her with such power it would have made her knees weak, had she been standing.
It was over. She didn't know how, she didn't know why, but it was over, and she could spare just enough time to smile radiantly and than the officer before passing out.
Sinking low in the bathtub, Shelly hissed slightly in pain as the hot water stung at the scrapes on her arms and legs. She would have to put disinfectant and some salve into the biggest ones later, but for now, she was intent on enjoying her first bath after what felt like aeons. And when she was done with that, she was seriously going to stay in bed for a week.
Poking at a bruise, she thought on this idea. It seemed like a very good one, except that if she recalled correctly, she was all out of groceries that would actually still be edible.
"Damn," she muttered to herself. "There goes that plan. Ah well, I don't really feel like lazying around this pigsty." Shuddering at the image of her apartment, dancing quite unsummoned in her mind, Shelly resolved to get the place cleaned. Soon.
But first, the bath. And a good night's sleep.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing, and while she valiantly attempted to ignore the device, whoever was on the other end of the line was clearly very insistent. Sighing, she rose from the tub, tugged at the plug, and, without so much as grabbing a towel, the sound of water gurgling down to the drain accompanying her, zoomed to the phone to pick up.
"Shelly speaking."
"Where the hell have you been? Everyone's been worried sick something might have happened, are you okay?"
She blinked. Roy.
There was a hint of panic in the boy's voice. No doubt he was telling the truth. She was willing to bet he'd been biting his fingernails with fervour these past few days, like he always did when he was nervous. She found it, above anything else, endearing.
After trying to convince him that yes, she was perfectly alright, just a bit tired, and finally succeeding, he flung another barrage of questions at her, mainly concerning her whereabouts, and why hadn't she told anyone anything?
Shelly took a deep breath, hesitated a moment, and smiled to herself.
"Here and there. It's nothing exciting, really. You'd be bored to death by the story. Now, would you like to come to the opera with me tomorrow? It's more fun if I have company."
Fingering the binocular-glasses sitting on the table while finishing up the call, she resolved to try and keep the whole incident to herself. She didn't want her friends to know. They didn't need to, for this day and every day after would be beautiful and full of hope.
Only the future was left.
maxfieldjadenfox
First Post
Roger said:
That would be OK with me...
