Infinite Writing Tournament XII

[donteatpoop]

Let's try this again. Since we had ZERO entries this year (a new low for us) Let's just put out a new Halloween deadline for 2016 and a new contest.


Animal Character(s)

One or more of your characters must be an animal. I don't mean "hey look a dog" I'm talking it must have a real role in your story. Protagonist or supporting cast? It's up to you. The setting, genre, and plot are entirely yours to do with what you will; but make sure that animal is a big part of the story.

Deadline: October 31st 2016

[End Master]

While I know it’s unlikely to work, you MIGHT get a few folks from CYS to participate because some of the "writers" over there are all into the whole animal characters thing.

Of course that also means you'll possibly be inviting shitty warrior cat fanfic writers over here, so it's still a gamble even if you're successful.

[Vesnic]

God bless you for not giving up on us, Poop. I for one hate being given up on.

[mizal]

Okay, End guilted me into coming over here and looking at this.

Animal character. Eh, sounds simple enough. But with the caveat that yes, CYS must be a part of this...because if I put up a story it's going to be over there. This site is dead, dead, poke-a-stick-up-it's-ass-and-prop-it-up-in-funny-places dead.

Plus, with that theme, it was practically made for that site. C'mon DEP, nothing like half a dozen stories about a wolf cub that grows up and takes over another pack and then falls in love and has six cubs, names of Shadowpelt, Ironfang, Whisperpaw, AdjectiveNoun, Winston and Gertrude, to liven this contest up and give us some real competition for once.

[Vesnic]

Mizal--We have had plenty of real competition at Infinite Story; you just weren't here or you chose not to make much of an effort. Since coming around and poking our "dead carcass" is pretty much all you do around here, why don't you consider switching gears and helping to revive the energy instead? I don't come into your house and periodically take a shit in your bedroom.

This year marks my 10th anniversary at IS. Others have been here even longer. That's a significant chunk of anyone's time, even if the site is just a small world within the larger spheres of our lives. There have been times of great fun, inspiration, debate, drama, fights, reconciliations, even romance. As the virtual world goes, IS has been a unique and surprisingly personal community for many of us. It is not up to you, Mizal, to sum up who we are or to call our time of death.

Life puĺls us in different directions, people change; but if the day does come when the site is shutting down and someone decides to give a eulogy, I sincerely hope that person won't be you.

[donteatpoop]

Oh good Mizal will be entering her story on another site.

So... You're not entering then. It's not as though that's surprising, but I don't understand the point of coming to this place just to say 'f this place'. We've had plenty of great contests with great competition; just this last year we had no entries.

If anyone wants to come here from there and enter a story on IS; they're welcome to do so. But posting a story there for here... Just makes no sense.

[mizal]

There's been lots of great competitions and discussion here in the past, I'm just not seeing how much longer a community that consists of...about three people, and maybe two more who occasionally drop in can limp along.

I seem to be fated to always want to get involved with writing sites and RP or IF communities and what have you when they're on their way out. Sucks, but that's the way of it.

I see on the front page there was a new story posted in January and a few more in December. You might try PMing the authors and inviting them to join the contest, that's the only thing I can think of.

The CYS community would be perfect for the theme, but even if it was advertised over there--which nobody seems very eager to do--realistically I'm not sure how many are going to want to write a story over there and then go through the added hassle of copy and pasting it over here. Especially if it means they'll be limited to the basic editor, which, is kind of a pain in the ass and forces you to use an annoying amount of duplicate pages. They'll get a few more reviews out of it that are almost guaranteed to be more in depth than most of the ones they'd get over there, and while I can see the value in that I'm not sure if it would be enough of an attraction to get them over to an entirely different site. Still wouldn't hurt to try if you really need entries...assuming needing to drop our cherished old attitude of 'CYSers are the scum of the earth and not fit to lick a real writer's anus, how dare they be young and post on an active site and have fun doing it' doesn't cause actual, physical pain, that is.

[Vesnic]

We've always had our highs and lows here, periods of relative inactivity followed by a span of new involvement. Once again, you have always been welcome to participate. You arrived at a time when we were much more active. So what has stopped you from getting involved in a bigger way? You seem to appreciate the thoughtful critiques and linguistic capabilities of several people here, so why not put yourself through a technical inconvenience or two in order to integrate into this community?

We have never made it a secret that IS is less game-oriented and more driven by narrative. That was a purposeful choice made by Sev and upheld by a core group of us here who enjoy interactive fiction, but consider ourselves writers first and foremost. There are several here who also like a game engine, and so those people also frequent other sites. What's wrong with that? You just come off as frustrated that you can't have all your requirements met in one place. Well I'm sorry, but that's called compromise. Is it really so terrible to have to put in a little extra effort for something you ostensibly care about?

...assuming needing to drop our cherished old attitude of 'CYSers are the scum of the earth and not fit to lick a real writer's anus, how dare they be young and post on an active site and have fun doing it' doesn't cause actual, physical pain, that is.

Seriously, this again? You sure do have an axe to grind and it's getting really fucking tired and obnoxious. We are what we are. We have our own opinions. That's why we're a separate site. What is the problem with that? If what we have on offer isn't good enough for you, then start your own damn site or just stay on the ones that better suit your tastes. Once again, it's uncalled for to enter our space and tell us what a bunch of snobs we are, especially if you have nothing constructive to add or suggest.

Infinite Story is extremely rare. It is just about the only place where fiction can be interactive without relying on the crutch of virtual dice to make it go. It requires more ingenuity and a far greater commitment to traditional storytelling than any other comparable site I know. That's why I'm here. That's why many of us are here. That's what distinguishes us.

You can take it or leave it, no sphincter sucking required.

[End Master]

Lol, well one thing that can’t be denied, the remaining ISers are true believers to the cause. Never compromise even in the face of Armageddon.

It’s sort of funny this should come up since I was just rolling my eyes at the resident CoG/Twine adbot going on her usual obnoxious posts about how much CYS sucks and CoG/Twine are much better. (No, this isn't Mizal I'm talking about)

In fact she’s even proposing to submit an article on the site going on about the benefits of all three sites, but all it really is, is free advertising for CoG/Twine and only going to hurt CYS in the long run.

The sillier thing is the mods are actually considering accepting this blatant undermining of the site. Not really sure what they’re thinking.

Now I actually considered posting a long ass tirade about why I thought this was an incredibly bad idea, as well as why it was just an ongoing asshole move on her part (And this is someone who claims she “loves the CYS community” Yes, I love you so much I’m going to slowly smother you with this pillow!). But then I thought, why bother?

If the mods/admins don’t care enough about the site to do something to prevent blatant assholery why should I? As far as I’m concerned I’m already doing my part contributing to that site by adding stories to it, and if they want drugged up manic depressive subversives telling people how great CoG is and how much CYS sucks in their own forums, well hey I’m not going to stop them. I sort of said my piece on that front already a few times anyway.

What does all this story mean? Well I’m getting to that because I’m a long winded bastard.

Basically I see Ves’ point and contrary to some of the arguments I’ve had with her in the past, I’ve actually seen her point before. Just never quite agreed with it completely, but I can admire it’s purity.

Personally I think Mizal went about this wrong (Understatement! Lol) since like DEP said it doesn’t really make sense to make a story for a contest here and post it over there. If there is an IS Contest, obviously the submissions would have to be here. To some extent though I think for her there is a bit of frustration that this place isn’t as active. (Yes, it wasn’t never really active forum wise, but still it has gotten more comatose over the years!) I mean hell, I’ve make jokes about this place being a mausoleum, but still I’ll never leave it until me or this site dies.

My suggestion to DEP was if he was feeling up to it and if he wanted to fish for potential submissions, he could make a post over at CYS and see if anyone bites. Usually doesn’t, but it’s an option.

Well in any case whatever happens to this site, I guess I’m glad to know that if it does ever go dark it will be more due to natural entropy and won’t be due to someone regularly and deliberately going around spreading chaos.

[donteatpoop]

No, I appreciate the suggestion, End. But in the past when I've offered invites over there the closest I got to an entry was "can I post it on CYS?"

And I had to be like. "No. This contest is not on CYS, it's on infinite-story"

Also, Mizal; I don't recall having a "CYS is scum" attitude at any point; nor of our whole forum group having one... Just a few gripes here and there and an expression of why they preferred infinite-story... Hell I was the first to post stories on both sites and I still check in from time to time over there. I just don't engage in their forums because... Well personal preference. I find their chatter dull. They've got some talented writers though.

[donteatpoop]

BUT ANYWAY: The theme for this one is Animal character(s).

In true Infinite-story fashion, this thread derailed FAST.

[BatCountry]

Now when you say animal character(s), do we need to be specific in any way? Are they anthropomorphic? Can they talk? Must they be the main protagonist or can the animals be secondary characters? Just seems a little vague to me as animals have been used in so many different ways in stories.


Either way...I'm gonna say I'm in. Just for the fact that if no one else enters, I will win by default. Maybe a second IS victory will make up for...everything else...


I live in a house made of horse manure.



Count me in Poopy. Lets get this beastiality train movin'!

[donteatpoop]

Use the animals as you see fit. Completely up to your interpretation.

[screaminginside]

Hope it's okay to post here??

Use the animals as you see fit. Completely up to your interpretation.

Is this contest still open? If so, I may be interested...

Does it have to be an "actual" animal, or can I write a story about a person who acts like an animal? Or even is considered an animal by his peers based upon his actions? Either way, the contest has my interest.

[End Master]

Our contests are generally open until enough people enter them. Lol.

But yeah it's still open.

I was sort of wondering too about the animal thing in that could it be like a mythological animal such as a sphinx or manticore.