Messages

Ha! This will be an easy one. I'll just write about my dickhead boss. 

Photo-comics are also an acceptable format. 

I just googled ass-type to no practical avail.  Are we talking "cherry round" here or "inverted heart"?

[Deadline is no sooner than January 5, 2015]

We're too close to Christmas for a schmaltzy theme: by the time we reach the January deadline it will read like egg-nog that's gone off.  So here's something light-hearted to have fun with, or something profound to explore: it's flexible.  It's pliable.  It's...

THE INCOMPETENT KING


Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, but sometimes people are promoted too far beyond their abilities.  Your "king" could be a CEO, or a president, or a boss, or a headmaster.  She could be an empress, or a arch-sorceress, or a matriarch, or a drill-sergeant.  As long as your story revolves around someone quite ill-suited to their leadership-role then it passes muster with me.  Likewise, the tone of your story could be comedic, or philosophical, or tragic.  History affords us many precedents of ineptitude mixed with power.  Your "king" could be artistically insane like Rome's Nero, or well-meaning but feeble like England's Henry VI.  She could be hopelessly out of touch like France's Marie Antoinette, or a buffoon like America's George Bush II.  What would have happened if Michael Corleone had gotten whacked early on and the mob was inherited by Fredo?  What would happen if Hitler had poured his paranoia and managerial ambitions into an ice-cream reich?  So, pick your nincompoop from history or create him from scratch, and then weave the bestest story ever around his reign of bungling!

All lengths and styles of story are acceptable, from anecdotes to annals, and biographies to ballads.  Have fun!  Entertain us!  Write!

Deadline is no sooner than January 5, 2015

Voting criteria will include:

Best Non-King Character: most believable or captivating or magnetic or unique: could be main character or supporting role
Best King: The King that displays the least aptitude for dealing with their responsibilities (or at least best-king character)
Best Atmosphere: Which story evoked the strongest feelings due to excitement/humour/intrigue/wonder/emotional intensity?
Best Ending: Replacing "best plot" this time around, but mostly dependent on it: which story was constructed so well as to have the best punch at the end?
Best Background World: The best setting or milieu for a story: a place brought to life.
Best Writing Style: The technical art of combining words in clever or gripping ways.
Most Substantive: Which story provides the greatest insight into the foibles of power?  Can be philosophical or humorous.

I look forward to reading your story!  Good luck!

Wow!  What an honour.   I really thought WHAM had me there -his was a great piece.  I really liked aspects of Sinitrena's story as well, but I agree with the consensus that a bit of editing would have made it a tighter story. 

I reluctantly accept the praise for my "authentic swearing."   In my darkest days as a teenager this was more or less how I spoke (since this was more or less how everyone around me spoke).  It's an "ability" I'm not very proud of, and toe-stubbing aside I'm proud to report that I barely swear at all nowadays.    Still, in picturing how prisoners would behave in my mind, it was impossible for me to conceive of a way to portray their thoughts and words without swearing.  And once the floodgates were opened, well....

I'm glad Stupot+ mentioned the inventory aspects of the story, for the concept was something I conceived as an adventure game waaaaaaay back.  But in the end I thought the concept too hardcore for a joker like me to execute effectively, so I never pursued it.  Indeed, it was something I had entirely forgotten until Stu's theme got me thinking along the same lines again.  So I'm happy that the idea did in the end come to fruition, if not exactly as I originally thought it would.

Anyway, I'll try to get a new theme up ASAP.  I hope to see you all out for the next exciting instalment of....

....The Fortnightly Writing Competition!

Well, I've got two ideas:

Spoiler

1) "Tie him and him", to Mr. Eliot, implying Mr. Eliot would have an 11 letter term for tying two dudes.  Perhaps Mr. Eliot is T.S. Eliot, the famous poet?  Did he have an 11 letter poetic term for gay marriage?

2) "Tie" means put together, so we're meant to combine "him and him" to "Mr. Eliot".  In this context, I'm assuming "him and him" equates to the accusative/dative third person plural "them" (4), which combined with "Mr Eliot" (7) gives 11 letters.  But I can't make any one word that makes any sense with those letters (although "toilet" is a fun partial usage ).  So either Mr. Eliot refers to some famous Mr. Eliot that I can not deduce from the clue (first name or last...?), or I actually have to use "him and him" (9) with a two letter name (and I've had no success with the obvious TS in this line of thought). 

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Anyone else had any brilliant ideas?

Excellent use of logic, my friend.  Quite right, indeed.  Now somebody come up with another one that I can puzzle over, or I'll be obliged to come up with another one!

[Best Character]

I agree that you should not be put off by the length: these are good reads, people!  I lament that I was not able to give more votes, but Stupot+ has cruelly tied my hands in that regard.  So, here's how I see the chips falling:

Best Character: WHAM for his brooding, wrathful guard.  He's only in the story briefly at the end, but his character is as towering as it is terrifying: morally self-righteous and yet morally reprehensible at the same time.  Scary!

Best Plot: Sinitrena, because her story kept me guessing where it was going until the very end.

Best Atmosphere: WHAM for the turbulent storm that reflected the tempestuous characters and events on his barge.

Best Setting: Sinitrena for her prison and contextual background world, especially the idea of an "imprisoned" super-being acting as both the doer of dirty-work and the fount of knowledge to a powerful magical order.

Best Word Choice/Style: I've got to give a slight edge to WHAM here, for his authentic period-sounding dialogue and the intensity of how he portrayed the scene.

Yeah, that's right.  Too hard for you guys.  At least, that's what the folks over at the FPS & RPG Forums told me.   They said you guys couldn't solve your way out of an optional true-false questionnaire.  And something about your mama too, but that doesn't bear repeating.   But I was all like, "hey, give them a chance!  These guys are pretty clever if they put their minds to it."  I guess time will tell who was right....

Spoiler

Danger Mouse!

"Use anger" reversely = anger use, then split "mod" for d+anger and mo+use

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Oceanspirit crossed idol (8)

How many votes do we get per category? 

Wild stab in the dark, almost entirely built on letter count:

Spoiler

Dualnames' embryonic territory.

...I wouldn't dwell too long on the precise meaning of that solution, if I were you.

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[Fetuses region(9', 9, 9)]

Fetuses region(9', 9, 9)

Sorry for the grammatical henpecking, but the apostrophe makes me wonder: do you mean fetuses (plural of fetus) or fetus's/fetus' (belonging to a fetus -both are apparently acceptable)?

Is that 27 letters , or is the first word 9.9 letters long?

Very correct indeed!  I'll have to make the next one even more cryptic....

Spoiler

AGS related.

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A bit more swearing than I care to admit to writing, but how else do you make prison dialogue feel authentic I ask?

The Facility

   They told me I'd be working my pipe in prison.  I hate it when stupid people are right.

   I'm Roach.  It's not my real name, but a little guy like me's gotta play the niches in a place like this.  As in, curl up in the cracks so you don't get squished.  I'm quick to skitter, but I always bounce back once the light goes out.  I got myself a set of smarts, both the street type and the mouth type, which is why I've also got myself a twelve year ticket here at the Facility.

   It started to go down last Tuesday.  I was with my people: Gripes, Poops, and Rocco my cellmate.  He was into hot rods and hot women before the Man put him on ice for 14 years.  Nice guy.  Dumb as green spit dripping off your chin, but big and strong and easy going because of it.  Nobody picked a fight with Rocco, or he'd cheerfully put your head through your shoulders.  But as I said, if you kept on his right side he was cool, and a cockroach like me can get away with a shit-load in the shadow of that kind of giant, know what I mean?  There was also Gripes, a grizzled lifer working on his third decade, and Poops, a chunky regular finishing the back nine of an 18 year game.  My people ain't pretty, and they sure as hell ain't good company, but in a place like this they'll at least keep the hyenas off your back.

   Anyway, we were in the yard watching the aerial traffic stream by overhead in the beltway corridor.  Rocco likes to try to pick out the latest models and, like I said, he's a good guy to follow close.  And then Poops drops the bomb:

   â€œWord is that old Boney did the Dutch.”

   â€œHell!” Gripes muttered, shaking his head.  'The Dutch' is a kind of backdoor parole, only you're the only one sitting on the board.  Hey, if you want out bad enough, there's not an army of shrinks or guards gonna stop you.

   â€œHow?” Rocco asked.

   â€œWho cares how!” Gripes spat.  He was a lifer for life, in every sense of the word.  He didn't hold with fellas pussying out with a braided bed-sheet or cup of toilet cleaner.

   Poops got a mean looking grin on his face. “Now who do you think Finks is gonna lean on?” he asked.

   â€œShit,” I said, putting all the pieces together.  Finks and Boney were cellmates next door to me and Rocco.  Finks talked ceaselessly like an old lady at a tea-party, and old Boney bore the brunt of it.  With him gone Finks was bound to wedge his head up against the corner of his cell door and run his mouth like a broken faucet at us.  “Shit,” I repeated.  “I hope they find him a new cellmate fast.”

   Yeah, I'd eat those words.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

   His name was El Lobo, and he was a piece of work.  Long hair tied back mercilessly, a sharp razor of a moustache, and in between a pair of steely eyes so cold and hard that they could have doubled as industrial ball-bearings.  His arms were tattooed with venomous snakes and spiders, and word was he was clicked up good with some nasty people on the outside.  Normally the piranhas would give a new piece of meat a nibble or two just to see if it still had some kick left in it, but from the moment this guy chained-in it was like he was in an invisible ten-foot gerbil ball.  It didn't take a rocket scientist like me to figure out that El Lobo was Spanish for Murder You With One Fucking Finger Bitch.

   Now I'd done a bit or two in my day, and I'd seen the occasional Gangsta Prince strut his stuff around his concrete castle.  Guys like that would squish you like an ant, or even have it done for them by a fawning fan-boy, but you gotta consider that on any given sidewalk there are just too many ants for even the most vindictive son of a bitch to squish.  The trick with these guys is to avoid, defer, and at all cost not attract their malicious attentions.  Too bad we were his god damned neighbours.

   â€œHey.  You guys.  Get over here.”  You couldn't see him around the wall of the cell that night, but a disembodied tattooed arm beckoned sinisterly through the bars where our cell door abutted his.  Rocco and I obeyed without question.

   â€œWhat's with this guy in here?” the arm asked in a light Hispanic accent.  We could hear the faint snivels of a high-pitched whine echoing from around the corner.  “It's like he needs a new set of brakes or something.”

   Rocco and I didn't say anything.  We figured that Finks was pretty much fucked.  Right now we were more interested in saving our own skins.

   â€œThe thing is,” the arm went on, swivelling exasperatedly, “I'm more of a body man.  Knocking out dings and shit, yeah?  You put me on a brake job and I'd probably rip out the whole fucking engine.”  The hand clasped into a fist for emphasis, then disappeared.  Rocco and I held our breaths, waiting for the inevitable, but to our surprise the hand returned with a scrap of paper.

   â€œGo on, take it,” the hand insisted.  Rocco shook his head at me.

   â€œIt ain't been down no rabbit hole, if that's what you think.  What, you think I'm a dirty guy?”

   â€œNo, we don't think that,” I said, snatching the paper.  Mother fucker, it was a schematic plan of the Facility.  This Lobo guy was gonna make a road trip and he wanted us in the car.

   â€œI'm going to need a few things,” the hand continued.  It was understood that we could not refuse the favour now asked of us.  “Things that might be hard to get, and hard to move around, yeah?  I'm thinking you can use those plans to figure out how to get all that kit up here in your cell.  The list is on the back.”  The hand withdrew sinisterly.

   I spoke up quick: “Whoa, hang on there Cuz!  This is gonna take some time, man.”

   â€œI figure they put me in here knowing that I would murder this worm,” the voice whispered, now disembodied.  “And then they would put me in their hole.  I cannot go down another hole.  In three days I will rip out this squeaky man's throat: I can not restrain myself longer.  But before I do, I will make sure that there are a number of ...coincidental misfortunes on this tier.  Do I make myself understood?”

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

   What the fuck would you do?!?  You got a bomb on your hands with a three day fuse burning, you'd damn well haul ass to stop it sizzling too.  Some of the things were easy to get and move, like axle grease from the shop and a garbage bag from the canteen.  But some of the things were fucking moon shots.  An M3 Med-Kit?  They were locked down tighter than the nurse's ass up in the Resuscitation Ward.  And how the hell do you move a 14-inch metal pipe through a place laced with security cameras, guards, metal detectors and freelance snitches? 

   Mr. Lobo wasn't much of a help.  “What, you want me to write you a ticket to the Resuscitation Ward?” the hand asked with more than a little relish.

   Poops found a good pipe for us on detail down in the pumping room.  He just ripped something out of service right out of the wall.  Me, I work a shift down in Waste, so I was able to salvage about six dozen shoe-laces to make one tripping rope.  Using the plans we were able to figure a way to fish that pipe up through the drains right into the cell.  Turns out those drains are almost ten inches wide: not big enough for a man, obviously, but wide enough not to get jammed up with all the crap that we juice-suits flush down there.  The hard part was getting the damn toilet off the stack on our end.  Old Gripes helped out with a homemade wrench that he carved out of a wooden spoon on kitchen detail.

   â€œConsider it a farewell gift,” he said sarcastically, shoving it down the back of my pants when we were in a blind.  I think there was a tear in his eye when he left, muttering to himself.

   Assorted screwdrivers, a plastic shiv, a blanket, a watch, and at least six feet of 12 gauge wire.  The last would have been impossible to move even if we could lay our hands on it, but miraculously we found a length of slightly inferior wire behind the fixture in our own cell with the screwdrivers and some creative balancing acts.

   Now there was just that Med-Kit.  They use them for everything from gashes to broken bones, a technologically modern way to piece you together again so they can send you back to your lumps as fast as possible.  Gripes said it used to be that a man could get a two week holiday in rehab for being shanked, but now it's a 20 minute patch job and you're back on the block.  I've seen some bottom feeders beaten to a pulp three times in a session: they just do a rough patch job in R-Ward with the Med-Kit and send you right back into the fray.  Something about not wasting the hard time we've all earned for ourselves down here.  God damned right-wing politicians and the medical industrial complex that caters to their every whim....

   But fuck me it'd be sweet to have one, to cure whatever ails you.  Me, I was fixing on redoing my bum knee before turning over the goods to El Lobo.  Rocco, showing off his inner pretty-boy, wanted to take off a few scars.  But we were literally pipe-dreaming if we thought we could fish us something like that.  On the second evening we hatched a desperate plan.

   â€œWe gotta break something,” I said.  “You know, like a bone.”

   Rocco nodded, sizing me up.

   â€œNo, dumbo,” I shook my head.  “I work the Waste shift tomorrow, remember?  You get  banged up and taken up to the Resuscitation Ward and use that charisma of yours to distract one of them love-lorn technicians up there, and send the Med-Kit down the conventional waste chute.  NOT the medical waste chute, mind: we don't get access to that down in Waste.  You get it down the conventional and it will end up in the main stream.”

   â€œHow you gonna pick it out?”

   â€œI'll find it, don't worry.  From Waste I can hump it as far as the block's metal detector.  From there we'll have to fish it the rest of the way.”

   â€œI don't think a Med-Kit'd fit through the pipes...” Rocco mused, grasping at excuses.  That's when I hit his hand with the pipe.

   â€œFuck!” he tried to shout, but I covered his mouth before much noise could escape.  His hand was broke all right: you could tell by the way he wasn't trying to strangle me with it.

   â€œOne of you pussies drop the soap down there?” the smart-mouthed guard called down the corridor.  His buddy chuckled at the joke.  Bloody fuzz.

   â€œYou just hide that until my shift at 0800, got it?  Then get your ass booked up to the R-Ward.  We only got one shot at this.”

   We lay sleepless that night listening to the sickening squeaks of Finks on his last night on Earth.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

   After canteen I joined my chain-gang heading down to Waste.  Rocco was supposed to get in a scuffle and then get booked up to the Resuscitation Ward.  Later that day he told me the whole sordid tale of how he was treated by Creasy Karen, a sixty-something year old med technician that looked more like a dried apricot than a woman.  Rocco let her fix his hand, and then swallowing all shame and not a little bit of vomit, he spontaneously kissed her.  Then he begged her not to report him, he just wanted to remember what it felt like to kiss a real woman again.  He was a little sketchy on the details after that, but suffice it to say that when I fished the med-kit out of the main Waste stream it was tangled up with a double-E industrial strength bra.

   â€œWhat'cha picking at over there?” a fat guard barked at me.

   â€œHoly shit!” I called out, thinking fast.  “The Warden threw out his uniform!”  I tossed the bra to a nearby pack of other prisoners who instantly ran with the joke, instigating a huge uproar.  During the commotion I was able to slip into a blind and tie the med-kit to a shoe-lace rope I'd tossed through the bars that sealed the Waste Division.  After I was through the metal detector I could retrieve it while the guards were distracted by the chunk of metal I'd plant on the guy behind me.  From there I'd do the chain-walk up to the yard for exercise, where I could get it fished up through a window in the confusion of the shift-change with the help of Poops.  He in turn would get it into the pipes where we could fish it the rest of the way into the cell.  It was a ballsy plan in more ways than one, but sometimes you gotta take crazy risks if you're gonna survive in place like the Facility.
   
*   *   *   *   *   *   *

   That night we triumphantly claimed that we had everything on the list.  I didn't know what El Lobo wanted to do with it, and I've learned that survival sometimes depends on not wanting to know.  We tried to pass the first item around the corner of the cell to him, but he refused, telling us to put it all into the plastic bag except for the 14 inch pipe and the axle grease.

   â€œDo you see the service tunnel marked on the plans?” he asked.

   Fuck.  I thought we were just playing a supporting role, but now it seemed that our involvement was only going to escalate.  I reluctantly looked closely at the paper and told him that I did.

   â€œIn there you will find two main power wires that supply all the blocks on the east side of the Facility.  You must use the shiv to cut the coating and the wire in your bag to cause a short circuit.  Then, using the screw drivers, you must remove the grating so that you can access the maintenance corridor in the basement of this ward.  Do you understand?”

   â€œUh, yeah....” I said, trying to keep the incredulous chuckle from my voice.  “But how the hell is anyone going to make it to that service tunnel?  It's fifty feet underground with no access except from the municipal infrastructure outside the Facility.”

   El Lobo paused ominously, the venom of his tattoos flexing.  “You have one hour,” he said.  “Rocco.  Use the pipe on Roach, then lube him up and stuff him down the drain.”

   I was still processing what exactly the plan entailed when Rocco landed the first cheerful blow. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

   Have you ever ooched your way like a worm through a ten-inch diameter tube of filth, most of your larger bones broken, your bleeding wounds salved by nothing but the urine diluted crap of the ass-end of society?  It was pitch black, and the air was foul when it was there at all.  It would have been a fitting end to a guy like me, stuck down a shit pipe like a wad of nastiness.  But you gotta remember something about me: I'm more of an insect than a man.  Yeah my lungs were partially collapsed, and I was more than a half-squished pulp, but like a half-dead insect I was still half-alive.  My limbs still twitched against all odds or reason, and like the cockroach I am, when they beat me down I simply popped up somewhere else.

   Fighting against the numbing pain I was able to force an overflow hatch and heave myself like a grub in metamorphosis into the eerie glow of the phosphorescent-lit service tunnel.  I fumbled desperately with the plastic bag to free the Med-Kit and start piecing myself back together.  How much time had passed?   There was no time to fix the rest of me yet.  I limped towards the wires and started desperately hacking at their covering, sometimes cutting with the shiv and sometimes gnawing with my teeth like a rat until both wires were free.  Then, using the blanket to insulate myself from the shock, I used my smaller wire to create a short-circuit.  Through the maze of pipes above me I heard the familiar alarm bells of the Facility echo hauntingly down into the service pipe before setting to work on the grate.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

   I learned from Rocco later that El Lobo had killed poor Finks by stuffing a bar of soap down his throat.  The bubbling looked like a seizure, which convinced the guards to open the cell door.  When I shorted the power El-Lobo was able to quickly kill the distracted guards with his bare hands.  Grabbing the keys and their guns, he then freed Rocco and the two inmates from the other side of his cell.  A mad-dash ensued as they raced through the red-flashing corridors of the ward, the wails of the alarm pumping their blood as their hearts were in their throats.  They were able to bring down two more guards quietly and gain their firearms before they were bogged down in a fire-fight in the exercise yard.

   But then El Lobo doubled back, leaving his hapless compatriots to die in a spectacular lead- and laser-fuelled distraction.  Rocco followed as he wove his way through hallways and stairwells until at last they found the maintenance corridor, just as I was kicking my way through the last grate.

   â€œExcellent work, my friends!” El Lobo called, a smile on his lips.  Then he shot us both in the stomach before slipping through the grate and out the service tunnels to freedom.  I guess we should be grateful, since we'd probably survive the experience.  I guess he figured rotting away the next couple of decades in the Facility was a better reward than a quick head-shot death.  That's the kind of guy he was.  Too bad he forgot about the med-kit and my passive-aggressive tendency to get revenge once my enemies turn their back.

Spoiler

Donald Dowell!

"DO WELL" follows ALD (disease mitigated by Lorenzo's Oil) and DON (Godfather)

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Inwardly half-enjoying a messed up brand (3, 6)

Spoiler

So.... No.

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Serious hint:

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Capitalization helps.

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Monkey Island?

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You're in the right era, but incorrect.

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[Adventurous concern twists inner eSailor (6,6)]

But nobody remembered my birthday.... 

Spoiler

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edit:

Adventurous concern twists inner eSailor (6,6)

Spoiler

Adventure game related

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