Ugh. I had never experienced anything significant to count as a hang-over before this. I used to think hangovers just gave you a headache or something, but I have discovered that, for me at least, they involve being just as clumsy as I was when I was drunk, but not having any of the joy of inebriation. I find myself saying, "Ugh," and, "Gah," quite a bit.
Thank you for understanding my pain. It is good to have reminders of foolish acts.
I'm not sure whether you wrote to the right audience, since Humpty Dumpty, Dr. Seuss and the old Lady in the Shoe are not exactly household names in [/font][font="]Germany[/font][font="]. and I'm not sure about the [/font][font="]Netherlands[/font][font="]. --SNIP-- I still don't know who Sam's supposed to be, for example. The Cat in the Hat? Yosemite Sam?
Sam-I-Am from Green Eggs and Ham. An excellent story worth finding and reading. Detective Sam's last lines were inspired by certain passages of Green Eggs and Ham.
berandor said:
Now, about poems. Including poetry in a Ceramic DM entry is ambitious, because you don't have a lot of time to get them right, but getting them right is very important. I don't know much that falls flatter on the audience than bad rhymes. Your rhymes don't always work.
Tell me about it. You all should (never) see the ones that didn't make the cut. The rhymes were definitely the hardest part of this story. Some of them came in fits and starts over the course of the 72 hours. And I would write them as they came. The rhyme you picked out as working well came altogether in a very short span just as I needed it. Weird how that works.
berandor said:
Still, while the murder case is there, it's solved rather easily. All conflict is overcome quickly.
I, like Firelance, used a familiar structure to frame my story. Law & Order. The first half anyway. For those unfamiliar with the show, it's an hour long divided into two halves. In the first half (which I modeled my story on) police investigate a crime. In the second half, lawyers hash out the criminal charges in court. Plain vanilla Law & Order is one of my favorite shows. You only see the successful leads, so that they can pare down a long investigation into the interesting/important bits.
berandor said:
You also shift in your narrative's time a lot. Mostly, the story is written in present tense, but you often switch to past tense and back.
Mistakes. Definitely something I tried to look out for and just missed. A lot.
berandor said:
The image of a mother selling her daughter nugget by nugget is grisly and great, but if she does, how come the children are emaciated and dressed in rugs?
Because the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe blew all the money on meaningless frippery. Like remodeling the house. She 'had so many children, she didn't know what to do,' is how the verse goes. The verse doesn't paint a favorable picture of her. She's abusive and mistreats the children.
berandor said:
Oh, and how does Captain Grimm grab Rapunzel's hair?
Uh... hmmm... gravity? I rationalized that the drag from the braid going up over and behind the house and then feeding into the captain's hands horizontally would be more than sufficient to keep the braid from slipping. And - hey! You don't think (content) looks like a golden-gogo-dancer-Goldfinger-reject (pullover)? Come on!
berandor said:
"My partner in rhyme." is a nice ending, showing that Rapunzel has accepted Sam.
Thanks. It was fun to write. Actually fun. A new experience for me with CDM. Usually I'm just a ball of adrenaline and nerves and caffeine. And I have to give credit for the last line to my husband. He's marvelous with rhymes and puns and this was just one of many (some quite funny, but inappropriate) he entertained me with while I wrote.
Good catch on the catch. Really, all you guys have gotten a lot of the little details, not that they are especially hidden... but still - Good on ya!
Yeah, I knew the risks of rhyme. Especially up against Seuss. It was a feeble tribute and I decided it would be fun to even try it. I had fun, and offer sincere apologies for the rhymes that flopped.
Oh... Rapunzel wasn't a rhymer, I didn't explain it, but she picked up the rhymes off of Sam. The bond between partners, ya know? Though why she picked it up right off... not too sure. Rapunzel was supposed to come across as irritated with the rhyming and, convenient for my hasty rhymes, not so good at it.
mythago said:
Very nice use of the pictures, though I had trouble with the Captain being a statue and being able to move and pose (as in the pullover pic) simultaneously. There were a few other minor flaws--why shouldn't Sam know about Rapunzel's history?
The Captain can't actually pose. That's the shape she got frozen in when Midas touched her. Imagine her reaching out to touch Midas. Forgot this little detail.
About Rapunzel's partner? Sam's new to the precinct. I'd hoped to point that out more, he didn't know what was up with the captain and all that sort of thing.
--------
To Firelance: Crush Macbeth. Leave no traces. Erm... I mean good luck, both of you.
I really enjoyed Cinders and Gnomish Word for Word. I felt it would be close and you had me worried - with good reason. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.
Oh! I can hear the opening theme of Law & Order downstairs (where my husband is busy cooking for Thanksgiving - isn't he sweet?) so I'm going to tie off this long-winded ramble and head downstairs to pitch in (and watch my show).
Thanks again to judges, organizers and writers. This was great fun! I'll get past round 2 one of these days.
Thank you for your explanations. I always find it enlightening when the author tells us why (s)he made the choices (s)he made. (Well, except maybe that one time when I screamed how barsoomcore was "wrong, dead wrong, and even a blind monkey would know that"...)
Thank you both for your stories, Macbeth and Orchid Blossom. I enjoyed them.
Just as an FYI--when I did the montages it never occurred to me that authors would feel obligated to literally include all the junk I juxtaposed.
I had been reading a lot of Dave McKean illustrated things--like Black Orchid--and I was in love with the way he would use objects to suggest something related to the themes of the story, but not literally in the story.
So for example, of the back cover of one of the Black Orchids, I think there was something like a picture of a leaf that had been sutured to some other objects--techno, man-made, pharmaceutical things. Which fit the themes of Black Orchid's story (a genetically engineered sentient plant person with superpowers, for those who missed this). The stitched leaf and hypodermic needle never appeared literally in the story--they were symbolic of things in the story, and it worked fine as an illustration.
I'm sure that I (perhaps unconciously) echoed that picture when I did this montage.
I moved away from doing montages after the writers had such trouble with my fox-lady and cherry blossoms metaphor. Also because a few of the later ones started to look more like the covers of paperback mystery novels and less like multi-leveled, methaphorical McKean things. It is really hard to do this well.
But there's still a few left from that period that haven't been used that may turn up here eventually. So I thought I'd mention this, in case anyone has to face these again.
Siala, you're nifty. Just in case you hadn't been told that lately. The last Ceramic DM, I got knocked out after the second round, but in that story probably the only good scene was inspired by a vaguely dragon-esque image with gold and green scales. I quite enjoyed it. Need to revisit that story some time. Hmm.
Sadly, Pkitty, that was probably the most entertaining piece of writing I've done this year. The drunk posting wasn't the problem. The problem was the drunk emailing of random links I saw, like Pete from Sluggy. And the drunk calling of my ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend. And the drunk voicemail I left with my friend Raul, promising I would help him move, using my Atlas-like strength to bear the world into the trunk of his car.
RangerWickett: "The Two Winds"
A very strong story. I enjoyed the mythical touch it had, with a storm demon bound to carry a monastery aloft, students learning to harness the winds, ... Your style fits these tyypes of stories very well; it is elaborate, but I like it. There are small details in your descriptions that really enhance the story, such as the demon describing a "wonderfully cruel mage", or fields that "rustled with wild freedom".
Of course, some of these details point us to the fact that Pilus and Lsi Pu are one and the same, like Lsi Pu's temples graying (a very small detail that makes sense only as reminder why he seeks eternal life), or when Lsi Nu Gon hopes his brother's riddle is not "another anagram". Or when Lsi Nu Gon is distraught and quiet, and Lsi Pu is normally quiet, telling us subtly (?) that Lsi Pu is not distraught.
Serving the spirit as a meal is almost a classic in mythical tales, isn't it? It's still a great display of evil, however. And when Lsi Pu smilingly eats another slice of bread, all the slowly intensifying hints have reached their climax: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this guy is eeevil! (And dying by having one's breath pulled from the lungs - how cool is that, and how thematically appropriate? Great!).
However, the climax is also the moment you start to lose me. At first, it's "'Lsi Pu, why?' - ‘I always gave you puzzles, brother... Anyway, I'll use Pilus now. It's (...) sufficient.'" Way to go non sequitur here, or did I miss something? Just what is Pilus sufficient for, and just why does he bring that up there? I feel you just wanted to show us that Lsi Pu accepts his deeds and truly is Pilus, and not somehow dominated or something similar.
But it gets worse after Pilus is killed.
"Then understanding took [Lsi Nu Gon], and he collapsed,..." Understanding about what? That he killed his brother, the murderer?
And when Pilus is awakened by the Two Winds, we have this exchange:
"Brother, (...) I tried to kill you. (...) The demon, it-" - "It lied to you. (...) It deceived us, played upon our fears." Huh? Or, better, WTF? I mean, Lsi Pu did all the talking, not the demon. And which fears, aside from losing ones mentors and friends and eating ones lover, can be still played upon and have been played upon? So suddenly, Lsi Nu Gon is Pilus' lapdog, and I totally don't buy it. I'm not saying it doesn't match the genre, as a lot of Wuxia flicks tend to lose me to similarly confusing character development, but I still don't buy it.
That said, the final paragraph is a very cool ending in my book.
Rodrigo Istalindir: "Mind over Matter"
Prague. The Golden City. Have you ever been there, Rodrigo? It's beautiful. But there's a certain danger in using a real-world place, too (see "pics").
Still, your opening paragraph kicks major booty. How Prague's body hadn't been broken, but it's spirit been crushed, the "gaunt look of a terminally ill patient" - absolutely wonderful. It drags me in, it gives me something to gnash my teeth on, and it tells me that I'm about to read a classical dark cold-war story. Then you drop the hint about Kennedy's death, and intrigue me. And finally, you tell me about the habits "he was too old to break", and I'm in the story, I know what kind of story to expect (grizzled veteran in grim surroundings versus old and new foes), if not the exact plot.
You really deliver the goods here. I would have Anders to be even more cynical, but the details of the Party Market, the State Opera (what a wonderful building, btw) and the KGB "travel coordinator" - it's all very realistic and exactly like we want it to be - corrupt.
I particularly enjoyed the false friendliness Anders and Valya adopt in their first conversation, with well-put exaggerations like "How wonderful for you." I could imagine these two just watching each other for a slip, a tiny mistake.
The assassination attempt on Anders was a little confusing to me, however. After reading the whole story, when Gregory later says "I am under strict orders not to kill you." (emphasis mine), I wonder why then did he try to kill him? Did Valya simply order the assassination because she wanted no loose ends, or because of personal enmity, and after she discovered Anders for a traitor she reconsidered? Or What?
(Oh, and if "the strength and clarity of the visions were proportional to how far in the future the events occur", then the further away, the clearer the visions would be, at least how I understand the concept.)
As with RangerWickett's story, your ending didn't answer all my questions. First of all, when Anders enters the top floor, he notices "several guards". What happens to them? Don't they get suspicious when Gregory suddenly slumps over, or when the elevator crahes? And is Anders mentally capable of killing all of them quickly after his strenuous activities before? (It's just a small nagging, but it's a nagging, nonetheless)
What's actually more important to me is how Anders could so easily kill Alexei. Perhaps he considered a stuck elevator as normal for Prague (as it just might be), but Valya looks "terrified". Then, the comparably weak Anders holds down the "stop" button, slices the cables and releases the safety while the strong TK Alexei does - nothing? Doesn't he try to carry the elevator, or if the car is too heavy for him, to suspend himself in the air before the crash, or perhaps even to open the ground floor doors to jump to safety when the car rushes past? Whatever he does or doesn't do, I'd like to know. The way it is, I think Alexei has a cheap demise. He deserves better.
The ending is suitably cool, however. And I hope you don't mind that I picture http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000872/]Patrick Bachau[/url] as Anders.
The Pics inthedark
- Rodrigo Istalindir, this is the http://www.ph-ludwigsburg.de/mathematik/rz/personal/ostertag/ privat/Bilder/Prag02/Bilder/karlsbruecke.jpg]Charles[/url] http://www.groscurth.com/archives/karlsbruecke.jpg]Bridge[/url]. Not some measly wooden excuse for a bridge (sorry). You should have chosen a ficticious bridge, perhaps because the Charles Bridge is still crowded at night. Anyway, your bridge is the meeting point of Anders and "the agent", the point where Anders is reactivated and the story starts for real.
- RangerWickett's bridge also starts the story, as this is where shamans can't see to and where Pilus questions and, ultimately, frees Doh Wma Sy.
Thickly
- RangerWickett has the butterflies coalesce into a young woman who can only take the shapes of those creatures nearby (even if she gains a Seren complexion). This woman is a red herring for the reader, as she's not Pilus in disguise, and also a potential lover/teacher for Pilus, whether she wants to or not.
- Rodrigo Istalindir uses the pic as a sign of decadence and wealth. Plus, here Alexei demonstrates his finely-tuned abilities by first crushing one, then killing all the other butterflies in the hollow window (inadvertendly teaching Anders how to kill Alexei, himself). This is when Anders realizes just how good Alexei has become.
feast
- Rodrigo Istalindir's feast occurs when Valya meets up with an American mole at the Party Market. Anders watches as breads are broken and exchanged. In a way, these breads are also a sign of decadence and the overabundance of the few in contrast to the shortage of the many.
- RangerWickett's feast is a table full of breads that are cheerfully eaten by Pilus but not his brother. The breads have been made from Lsi Nu Gon's lover, the grain spirit Kya Besh Ko, or as the demon phrases it, she has "provided this bounty". It's what finally sends Lsi Nu Gon over the edge and enable Pilus to attain immortality.
leap
- RangerWickett gives us two fighting brothers, a fight that will be echoed later on when Lsi Nu Gon kills Lsi Pu. Here, the two wear... "traditional" sparring clothing while using the winds to fly.
- Rodrigo Istalindir shows us Alexei and an unknown partner, star dancers in the Bolshoi ballet, dancing a routine that is enhanced by Alexei's powerful telekinetic abilities. This is when Anders realizes that yes, Alexei would be powerful enough to kill at a distance.
buttons
- Rodrigo Istalindir's buttons come and go quickly, as Alexei presses them to descend, and then Anders uses his power to stop the elevator before killing Alexei and Valya. It's almost as if there's not even a link to the pics in the story
- RangerWickket's buttons are one of Lsi Pu's riddles, a number riddle that is almost solved by his brother. Like other riddles, we don't get the answer to it. I like the fact that the riddle isn't explained to us, but since it concerns a pic, this also means that the pic is fast forgotten save as a reminder that Lsi Pu likes riddles and anagrams.
The Judgement
It's getting harder and harder for me to eliminate one of you. I consider both stories to be very strong entries, fairly accomplished tales despite the short time frame. Both stories really captured my imagination, even if both stories have some smaller problems.
If there is a slight advantage in pic use, it's on RangerWickett's behalf, but it's an advantage that is one pic at most. On the other hand, while I noticed the hiccups in Rodrigo's story, I kept on reading, whereas the ending in "The Two Winds" really made me stop reading and shake my head confusedly.
In the end, I was too put off by the brother's reconciliation.
[sblock]POINT TO RODRIGO ISTALINDIR[/sblock]
Berandor
Wow finally different stories from similar pictures.
RangerWickett vs. Rodrigo Istalindir
Rodrigo, psi-forces, spies, rusian intrigue, and assasins. Rangerwickett, flying monks, betrail, and a cooked up spirit.
Both fantastic stories, congrats, but my point goes to Rangerwickett, that ending just rocked.
Mythago
It was a tough set of pictures, and you both rose to the occasion wonderfully. Yowza.
RangerWickett – “The Two Winds”
As soon as Pilus learns the secret of the Two Winds, we know where this is going…however, we don’t know *how* it’s going to get there. There are plenty of hints (the reference to anagrams, the obvious tension over Kya Besh Ko, Lsi Pu’s sudden interest in the butterfly woman) but nothing that hits us over the head. Nice. Though speaking of the butterfly woman, her speech was a little uneven and I wasn’t quite sure what she was doing there.
I was a little taken aback at Lsi Nu Gon’s sudden change of heart at the end; not his regret at killing his brother, but his eagerness to forgive and accept the explanation about the demon. We get the sense, during the brothers’ duel, that there is tension and not a little anger on both sides of that relationship. For Lsi Nu Gon to suddenly decide that Lsi Pu is OK and to conveniently forget about *eating* his lover is, well, a little convenient. But the end is bang-up.
Rodrigo Istalindir – “Mind over Matter”
The first paragraph out-and-out rocks. We get the setting, the central character, a sense of when this is happening, all without a lot of exposition. And I loved the rest of the opening as well, with the old ex-spy in his rut, reading the newspapers and finding what he did want and now, perhaps, didn’t really want to happen after all. (Though I would nix the thought “Probably because they never expected any of us to live past thirty.” His observation that they were never told how to be old spies is beautiful on its own.)
The story stumbles a bit on the flashback. It makes sense here for Anders to think about what happened before, but it’s given as expository, fill-in for the reader. Actually *showing* us the scene in the theater, with some dialogue even, rather than simply “Here’s what happened, now back to the bridge” would have made the story richer.
And a small bump – when Anders talks to Valya they use each others names over and over again. People don’t do that in real life unless they’re trying to make some kind of point by doing it. Since the two of them are pretending nicey-nicey, they wouldn’t be doing that, and it comes across as a crude device to tell us who’s talking. Not necessary; the back-and-forth is obvious.
The ending was fantastic but puzzling—isn’t Anders a precog? If Alexei is trying to tell Anders that anybody could do what he did, anyone with powers could use TK, that should be a lot clearer.
This was enormously tough, with two great stories. However,
I gave my vote to Rodrigo Istalindir because the central character was so much more engaging; we admire and cheer for old Anders vs. coolly admiring Lsi Pu’s clever villainy.
You all should (never) see the ones that didn't make the cut. The rhymes were definitely the hardest part of this story. Some of them came in fits and starts over the course of the 72 hours. And I would write them as they came. The rhyme you picked out as working well came altogether in a very short span just as I needed it. Weird how that works.
