Jamal

I’d like to restore the whole thread but I’m not sure I can do that now. I’ll look into it. I wouldn’t want to just post the story in isolation, witho...

Well, these are just my impressions. I’ve been wrong before.

Well, the year I put my Plum Pie in the contest most people thought I wrote the one with Russians in it; Plum Pie had no Russians at all. Maybe the sa...

I’m not very familiar with @"ucarr"’s writing, partly because I wasn’t involved last year. One reason I think “Homeward” is @"Noble Dust" is the claw,...

Interesting, but then how do you explain this comment for “Homeward”? I know Jamal is conceited, but that level of auto-adulation is surely beyond eve...

Then I'm an imbecile. :strong:

Oh but that’s exactly what I do, as I explained. Who’s the boneheaded simpleton now eh?

I realized that when I mention my favourite story, I actually mean my favourite aside from my own, which is my actual favourite. Is that just me?

I’ve discovered a great Russian term: ??????? ????????, roughly offissny plankton, which means office plankton. Although it’s a derogatory term that d...

Merry Christmas TPFers. Santa had nothing to do with my own Christmas success yesterday, which was to produce perfect roast potatoes. 1. Boil potatoes...

Not full-on total darkness, but I did go to a Valentine’s night at a restaurant where you couldn’t see anything very clearly. They only had a few cand...

:cool:

I have a strong feeling that the author won't be surprised or offended by this criticism.

I had a Swedish meatball wrap for lunch today. Pretty good. Just before that, I went to get a Russian visa. I was early so I stopped for a while in th...

Nice. I was telling Hanover about cumin lamb here a couple of weeks ago. It's from Uighur/Xinjiang cuisine originally I believe.

Classic! I watched the David Cronenberg film “The Brood” last night, to get in the Christmas mood. Excellent and horrible. I also watched “Indiana Jon...

I guess that’s the cowboy interpretation of Plato.

Now you’ve started philosophizing.

Actually I was into Plato a few months ago. Forgot about that.

Hey, I haven’t philosophized for at least a year so leave me out of it.

Your positivity is infectious.

Would it help if we had a section called “Woo”? :wink:

fdrake?! Nice to have FD on board. I suppose it would have to be “Kingdom Come, Inc.” or “The Woman in the Portrait”. Not sure.

Yeah, but who among this year's author cohort would be able to pull off such a prank? Baden's style is nigh-on inimitable, I think you'll agree.

I'm pretty confident I've got these right: "The Unrighted Leotard" by Hanover "The Perfect Match" by Amity "The Lark" by Baden "Homeward" by Noble Dus...

:up: Well, I've read several books like that. There's one that springs to mind in which almost every sentence is interrupted by long parenthetical pas...

I'll flesh these bones out... My initial thought was: no no no, the whole point of the painting is to show movement and it's a total rejection of this...

Yes. But talking of flow---and I'm not totally disagreeing with you here---I think maybe flow is valued too highly, particularly when ChatGPT can prod...

If I had to pick a favourite thing about this story it would probably be the guy called "r". I confess I instantly thought, "damn that's good, why can...

That struck me too. I mean I like the introduction of a gothic flavour, and I'm not necessarily against the pathetic fallacy, but it was definitely no...

I’m also familiar with the painting and although I was initially sceptical about the concept of this story, it won me over and I now think it’s brilli...

:up: Could just be that people read the short ones first. There’s plenty of time :cool:

More than a story's position on the list and the number of responses, I think story length plays a big part. People are busy, lazy, or just don't enjo...

Enjoy :smile:

Please don't be pissed off Amity. First, I changed the sort order on Benkei's urging, thinking it would be fairer and better, but later I changed it b...

Cool, cool, I trust your judgement.

Well, your decisive radical action will likely turn out to have been a good one, but I find myself slightly aghast at your boldness. EDIT: Alternative...

:cool:

Ah! I misinterpreted your "just". Hm, I hope you didn't edit mine, since everything in it is intentional. EDIT: No, it's good.

Do you mean when writing posts you add an extra line break? If so, then yes, that's what I'm saying ought to be done, since it's the standard for web ...

Do you mean that when reading the stories you reformatted them in the browser? I've done that myself, but not everyone is gonna know how. I think the ...

:up: Just to be clear (and probably pedantic), I think you mean paragraphs rather than lines. Anyway, you give good additional reasons for enforcing g...

Right. I sumbled over it myself. Getting it to work would require a first-person narration, such that the narrator becomes unreliable (but then, first...

@"Baden" @"Noble Dust" https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/954310 A suggested addition to the rules for next time. I don't think you'll ...

Classic

Which methods of execution do you think are more appropriate?

True. But I did own up to that, so it's really not cricket of you to point it out. :wink: EDIT: In my defence, I'm flip-floppy on the issue because I ...

Thank you for bringing this up, Javi. I am extra-sensitive to it myself. (I've been using Firefox reader view to read those stories, to ease the pain)...

Very good story, I enjoyed it. I would’ve been happy to keep on reading, to stay in the world of the story; at no point was I checking how much I stil...

Note to self: no changes shall be made to the story sort order.