mdk

Does This Remind Anyone Else of WWII?

This sort of thing isn't really new. Like, at least it isn't 100 years ago and we aren't sending the homeless to work camps anymore. I can see why a move like that might be considered good from the perspective of some state congressmen who's never left the suburbs, but that says more about the congressmen than it does the acceptability of their plan.

But of course, what we really need is an easier route to section 8 housing and better mental healthcare. The out of sight, out of mind move they are pulling is weak.

Also... i'd be careful using that site as a reference in the future. Like seriously, the front page reads like it was written by one of these homeless guys.

@Vilageidiotx

The trick of it is, whatever city treats homeless people best gets all the homeless showing up. If you were to spend a billion dollars to get everyone in your city a place to live and three square meals a day and it all worked perfectly -- you'd still have homeless people in your city a month later, because you'd be the city that takes care of people, and Greyhound tickets out of Dodge are cheap. So no one wants to be the first place to solve the problem. Almost seems like a good enough reason to get feds involved somehow -- carve out a district in Nevada or something. In fact...... whoever wrote that said FEMA, so..... I'm gonna do my find-the-bill thing.

*time passes*

Alright, so via Huffing-and-Puffington Post, I found the explanation and background of the plan. Note that the camp is a temporary countermeasure to what's described as "An acute emergency" relating to public safety in commercial districts. Also note that the permanent measure has exactly four months to be solved, and the permanent solution "Cannot be centered at emergency shelter site" (their emphasis), and that "NO PERSON WILL BE SUBJECT TO ANY LAW IN A MANNER THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER CITIZEN" (their emphasis). It is true however that there will be "NO FOOT TRAFFIC. PERIOD." (their emphasis), and that a police officer will "monitor and control" foot traffic avenues in order to enforce that rule (3 service vans will be operating to bring in supplies and, presumably, more "people in need of help").

So, mixed bag. Haven't located the actual bill they voted on yet, but that's the presentation of the response. Let's see if I can't dig up the actual document.....

*time passes*

Nope. City Council website had lots of agreement contracts with United Way Midlands detailing their financial obligations, but it looks like that PDF linked above is the best (most readable) outline of the plan, so..... yep. That's the deal. Apparently not done with fed money, though, so that wasn't a fruitless search.

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

<Snipped quote by Blitz>

Poor Yoshi. :'(

@Dedonus

CONFIRMED: KEEP SUMMER SAFE

RPGC#4 -- Voting and Discussion

Winner: 'The Mirror Boy' by @Alice!

Everybody loved it, and for good reason. @Alice also takes home the bonus category, 'All's Well, Ends Well.'

Runner-Up: 'Dramatic Reveal' by @PlatinumSkink!

A fantastic lie in a richly creative world. @PlatinumSkink also carries away the bonus category, 'When Life Gives You Onions'

Bonus Category Awards

We were slightly sidetracked with other circumstances during the normal judging period. This tentative list includes a winner for each category -- there's a tiny chance that we may elect later to add additional winners, pending further conversation, but these prizes are well-deserved and also totally safe. Congratulations to the following:

Illuminati Confirmed -- 'Unforseen Consequence' by @darkwolf687. A rich and complex conspiracy, full of betrayal.

When Life Gives You Onions -- 'Dramatic Reveal' by @PlatinumSkink. This story was lies upon lies upon deeper lies, truly nailing this contest's theme.

Insidious Whispers -- 'Crude City' by @Byrd Man. Not only was this twisted mystery truly dark, its secrets remained buried even after discovery. Profoundly well written.

All's Well, Ends Well -- 'Mirror Boy' by @Alice. An absolute gem of a piece, whose bittersweet conclusion left us wishing we could believe that it did, in fact, end well.

Last but not least!

In the first contest, we started a shaky tradition of recognizing outstanding contest efforts with the hopefully-coveted RPGC TOAST. Only @Kakashi Hatake has earned that honor, for recording his own lyrics in our musical-themed contest. Today I'd like to recognize another, very different, yet wholly significant contribution. We'd like to thank @Impaqt for their -- ironically -- impactful teamwork in helping us protect the integrity of these contests. @Impaqt helped us right a mistake we made months ago, and sparked big changes to how we'll handle plagiarism in the future. Honesty and diligence can be thankless tasks, but not today. We'd like to award the second-ever RPGC TOAST to @Impaqt, on behalf of everyone who participates, and on some level, on behalf of writers everywhere. And also on behalf of @Ghost Crowley.

Congratulations to all our winners, thanks to all our reviewers, hats off to all our participants -- and finally, for your next contest, head on over to your regularly-scheduled Fourth Labor courtesy of @Terminal (already in progress)

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

The preceding parts would be linked for context, and the conclusion would be all new for the contest.... but I've talked myself out of it. New story.

Why do cities, particularly NYC and California based cities (and cities based off of those), appeal to roleplayers so much?

Cities have their own mythos. Las Vegas -- where crazy shit happens. New York -- the city that never sleeps. LA -- the world's largest parking lot. Writers care more about the connotations associated with a city than the city itself. So if a gangster story needs a setting, the first place you look is Chicago, even though the day-to-day in Chicago proper is just like anywhere else. That reputation of organized crime is like writing capital, and it makes sense to take advantage of it.

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

I've got a question.

There's a story I've been working on for a long time, off-and-on. Haven't been able to carve out enough time to write the conclusion, but this is *almost* a perfect fit.... but only if there's nuance involved. It's about a noble lord gradually rejecting his nation to save his own (conquered) lands. So he's totally the ambitious guy, going it alone except, he's got subordinates following him. Most of those people are along for the ride all the way through. So even though he's 'Going it alone' in terms of the court nobility, he's bringing his lieutenants with him (most of them anyway), and those would be his 'friends' as described by the challenge.....

typing it out, I feel like that doesn't actually fit the labor. BUT IF IT DID, I would really love to finish it and share it here. It'd be crazy stupid long and I think one of the better big-pieces I've written.

No special treatment..... is that (plausibly, assuming I actually write it correctly) a fit for the challenge? I've got plenty of other ideas if that's better.

RPGC#4 -- Voting and Discussion

Late! Late! But I made it. @DarkWolf687, your review is finally here!

unforseen consequence

So I skimmed this like two or three times before finally ACTUALLY reading the whole way through, and I have to admit, I missed a LOT on those skimming passes. What you've got here is a solid first draft. No first draft is ever polished or perfect, so forget all those PACING or GRAMMAR or SENTENCE STRUCTURE type complaints I might normally bring up -- the whole point is to get the story down so you can come back later and fix it with a few well-placed nuclear bombs. I dunno if you plan on revisiting this or not -- but for the sake of practice, I'm gonna identify what I think are some nuke-able and/or build-able elements.

NUKE:

The trial scene. In the grander narrative, this doesn't advance anything. If it's gone, nothing really suffers -- though, alternatively, you could build a whole justice-system subplot on the side, to which the trial of the planetary commander would be essential. Currently, it's just sorta sitting there, and it's out-of-sync with the rest of the story -- the dude literally gets hit in the head with a book while monologueing. Not exactly headcrabs and dark-energy rifles there. I'd nuke it.

BUILD:

Rebecca as a character. She's interesting from the get-go, and she stays interesting in every scene, and her death has a really big-deal feeling. You nailed it with Rebecca -- great job! Now I have to figure there's room for a lot more of her. If I was a sleazy Hollywood producer I'd probably want a romantic angle squeezed uncomfortably into the plot -- it doesn't have to be that. But surely there's something for her to be doing -- something that would get us out of the Sectoral's mechanical head. Also Joey -- more Joey too.

NUKE:

Andrei Izotoz. I never played the games, but I have to assume the Brigade is a big deal there. Here, he's nothing. He shows up out of the blue and says Fuck, and that's essentially his only function. It's not doing anything for me. He gets the axe, I think.

BUILD:

Culture. Again -- I never played the game, so all this was new to me. You did a fantastic job with all these Combine types -- there's this weirdness to them, there's people (mostly super-interesting Rebecca) experiencing revulsion when they're seen unmasked, and martial atmosphere whenever they disagree. It's strong writing, so..... why not more of it? Bear in mind -- part of what I like about the cultural/how-they-tick aspect of this is, it's really well blended into the narrative. You hardly even realize it's happening, but when it's all said and done, I feel like I sorta get the trans-humans. That's something you can build on, if you were to ever do another draft.

two of each, that's good, right? I think you're too hard on yourself in your own review -- which is actually fantastic. If you'd shown up thinking "THAT is the best thing I'll ever write!" that would, uh... first drafts, for most people, are more like this. That's what they're for. You're not supposed to love every word, because before you know it, it's all gonna be obliterated in the re-write. The overall structure probably survives, and that's solid here. The big finale probably lives -- clean it up a little bit and it's awesome. Characters? I just want more of them, because they're all great. Except Andrei. Everybody else though, more.

What I'm driving at I guess is, you're in a really good place if you can pump out a draft like that. I'd recommend doing it again, as often as possible, because writing THAT MUCH is a muscle, and muscles need the exercise. And don't be embarrassed! My first drafts look much, much, MUCH worse.

And finally, voting..... I wavered between several amazing lies. I think though, end of the day, @PlatinumSkink went a step further on complexity AND execution. I'd love to kick a vote out to Crude City because my word that was special, but if I'm honest, I have to @vote for Dramatic Reveal. It was a hell of a job worldbuilding, too. Really nice work.

Reminder -- voting deadline is tonight, so make yourselves heard! And seriously don't vote for Sonnet O. It's a bad joke told poorly.

RPGC#4 -- Voting and Discussion

All but the last, biggest review are now done. That mind-blown feeling I was having earlier, about how good this batch is? It hasn't gone anywhere. I don't wanna oversell anything but..... you guys outdid yourselves. Anyway, @Alice, @PlatinumSkink, @Ellri, and anons, you're up!

the little black lie

So I like the idea behind the plot, but it’s not executed super-well. I’m not sure if we got too much backstory or not enough – a move in either direction would’ve helped. Like for example, filling this out to a 50-page story, where every little sub-section is full of character growth and plot advancement – duh, that would be stronger, but so would wiping out all of those parts and making it a story, about this long, that takes place entirely in the conversation between Harry and his folks. The simpler way of saying all that is, the pacing is off. It takes many many paragraphs for any writer to build a solid plot around spies and political killings and cover-ups – you sorta have to choose between writing all those paragraphs, or focusing on a smaller aspect of the story. Make sense? I wind up saying this a lot, but there’s a simple rule of thumb – section breaks are a fairly good sign that your pacing is gonna wind up wrong. “Wrong” is a bad word. It winds up….. choppy? Sometimes choppy is okay. Anyway. The lie itself was very intriguing and it was a great situation for fiction.

the mirror boy

Loved it. I think – correct me if I’m wrong – but I suspect the long line of rooms just like hers means she’s in a ward. Which is sorta heartbreaking after getting to know her, but hey… she’s kinda messed up. Pacing and style were spot on… Maybe an argument could be made for bringing up the car crash sooner, but not a compelling one. A couple of sentences read a teensie bit funny and it actually sorta worked in your favor – “Never could she feel” is a storybook-ish way of saying that, but that just adds to the mystique. Mystere? Whatever. It totally works. Absolutely solid all-around. I particularly like the simple “Nod.” paragraphs – that’s style right there. Great job.

dramatic reveal

Jeez, you got me. Got me good. That might be the best lie so far….. I mean I’ll have to weigh it, but that was really well done.

THAT SAID! The story was great but the style wasn’t stellar – aspects were beyond great, I mean legitimately I thought I was reading a new Final Fantasy pitch for a while there. The world was great. The characters were (I think) exactly and concisely what you wanted them to be. My two gripes – and they’re sadly big – are Exposition and Repetition. Exposition makes sense – you had a whole lot of setup required by this particular lie, a certain amount was inevitable, and I wouldn’t begrudge a little bit of exposition to get to the point that much quicker. It was laced throughout the entire story though – we’d stop talking about the conversation for a minute to instead explain how all the party members came to join. And notably too – though this might’ve just been a brainfart by me – I had no idea magic was involved until you brought up the gods of magic. So like…. Given that lots of exposition was always going to be required, it seems like that should’ve been a bigger deal sooner. Repetition is a more obvious and thus simpler problem – things like “In its place, this took place” or saying ‘barrier’ four times in three sentences – easy to fix, just change up the language.

I’m being picky partly because it’s theoretically good for you in the long run, and partly because of how much I liked the story. You got my mind going a thousand miles an hour in one direction and then faked me out completely on the lie. Extremely impressed. Damn good job.

new existence

It’s dark and revolting and captivating…. Less a story, more just a portrait of something horrifying. And I seriously love it for that. This is way shorter than what you usually submit and in a way I almost think it works better because of that – though your longer pieces always have an appropriate plot driving things along, this came across…. Idunno. Simpler, or purer, or something like that, but it’s just a fantastic little showcase of descriptive talent with nothing at all to distract me from the strongest points. “Beautiful” is a bad word but….. yeah. Kinda still beautiful. And in any case, great as ever.

reality checkmate

Totally the best poem here – I dunno who that other joker was, Sonnet O, what is that? Talking poetry for me means talking form first – this was a simple form, aabb rhyme and a lively meter, and that form made this poem. Other people reading the review – THIS is why poetry is still around. The predictable rhythm keeps you super-engaged so that every line means that much more. My cautionary advice is, look, changing up the pattern is totally cool, do it whenever you want, but go too far and the spell is broken. “Don’t dwell on events passed” jolted me right out of the flow because I just can’t read it in time. “But alas, I digress” sorta did too, but read aloud, it would’ve fit perfectly, so I’m honestly not whining there. The form was, overall, spectacular.

After form comes content. I’m not 100% sold on the content – which doesn’t prevent me from loving the poem, because the form was just that good. The speaker drifts back and forth on what’s a lie and what’s not, and it’s….. I mean, THOROUGHLY memorable because of how well you ended, but just generally less focused than I usually like. Normally ‘the point’ is more overt….. doesn’t have to be, but usually is. It’s almost purely preference I guess – I don’t LIKE getting to the end of the poem and wondering what the message meant, but I’m just the reader, I have no say in that. You keep doing it your way, because you’re on the money here.

RPGC#4 -- Voting and Discussion

Sorry for the brief delay on reviews, folks, kinda had my hands full for a minute there. I’m doing these as quality-of-writing reviews first, trying to keep them short and manageable… the plan was to get everything reviewed in one long sitting but after these first three I’m overwhelmed with quality. I feel like if I don’t take a break I’m gonna be unfair to whoever comes next. So here’s @Impaqt, @Tyler, and @Byrd Man. You guys are blowing me away. Incredible.

the 100% honest truth

Raw. Thoughtful. Powerful. This is clearly written from the heart, and if the heart tells you to write in pair-agraphs like that, I can’t really complain about them – they’re a little confusing but that’s actually adding a lot in this case. And while I can’t necessarily call it “FLAWLESS” (you wrote “your’s” instead of “yours,” TECHNICALLY a flaw!) this is definitely a piece that stands tall. Very, very, very, very good, and practically impervious to critique because hey – this is how it happened and this is how it feels and I couldn’t dream of telling you any different, could I? That’s a home run.

lie of the beholder

Goodness that caught me off guard. Holy crap. That’s….. that was amazing. The imagery leading up to “94 lbs” on its own line was just flat-out perfect. Because of how good the first half was, the dialogue portion felt a little weaker – and it was always going to feel that way, I guess, because dialogue is naturally less personal than inside-the-head sequences. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head to make it carry the same ‘weight,’ as it were, but if you had to pick something to work on in the future, you could try that I guess. If you could write dialogue that punches as hard as those first paragraphs, you’d go pro in a heartbeat. Again – it’s not a weak spot at all, it just seems weaker because of how well this opened. Fantastic piece.

crude city

Fan-fucking-tastic. This has everything a good noir should have – all the right turns in all the right places, and a great dismal mood throughout. Pacing and tone were spot-on too. Rarely and I mean rarely, the gritty veneer felt a little bit forced – things like coming up with too many new ways to say liquor, or the nuns who just happened to be walking by. If anything it’s just too much of a good thing, which barely counts as a problem, but it’d feel even MORE perfect if a few of these heavy-handed spots were toned down just a bit – you’re already painting a perfect picture, the lines don’t have to be that bold. Bianca’s explanation/exposition at the end was the only spot that didn’t really sound perfect – she used fancy words like ‘infinite oblivion’ and even though we haven’t really seen her enough to know for sure, that felt a bit out-of-character. I can’t emphasize enough how isolated that is as a problem – you friggin’ nailed this atmosphere. That was unbelievable. I mean wow. One of the strongest stories we’ve had. Top goddamn marks.