May 2013
4 posts
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"How do I help cure my son of his game addiction?"
You are 46.
(When did that happen? It feels like just yesterday you were approaching 40. Have you always looked this old?) [[MORE]]You are 46 and at a point equidistant between your college graduation and your retirement. If not closer to your retirement. This troubles you sometimes and comforts you sometimes. You are 46 and struggling to stay relevant in a field that would be perfect for...
April 2013
3 posts
3 tags
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Open Mike
Tuesday morning on the highest floor of Stephenson Hall, there was a knock on the door to Mike’s suite. More than a knock. Maybe it was a knock five minutes ago. Now it was more like someone was hammering on the door with his or her fist. Mike groggily reached for his Weave device. 6:56. He had an hour before his first class still. Who could possibly want to wake him up before seven? He...
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March 2013
3 posts
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Birthday Esp
“When’s your roommate’s birthday?” Eri was lying on Az’s bed, reading manga on her Weave device and stuffing her face with snacks. It was that kind of afternoon for her, a laze around, feeling mopey kind of afternoon. She looked up at Az’s question confused. “Isn’t it August 24th like it says on her papers?” Master hacker here should have known...
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Dreams of Kei
“Um Samantha?” Az waved his hand in front of Kei’s face. The girl stopped staring out of the window and snapped to attention. “You okay?” They were doing homework in the common room. Kei hadn’t touched her problem set in ten minutes.[[MORE]] “Oh, it’s nothing.” Which meant that it was something, but she didn’t feel like talking about it....
February 2013
1 post
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Academy Valentines
The beginning of February was a flutter of activity. End-semester evaluation examinations (not really E-SEE at all) followed by Lunar New Year’s would have been enough for the shortest month of the year, but it was followed quickly with well… “Time for Valentine’s Day!” [[MORE]] Kei barged into an empty dorm room, holding aloft several shopping bags full of...
January 2013
2 posts
5 tags
One
It didn’t seem right. The boy at his computer frowned. If you were some kind of elite gymnast that could leap from the nearby fire escape onto the narrow ledge of the window into this room, you would be struck by how typical this cluttered scene looked. Or perhaps you wouldn’t be struck, because it was extremely typical.[[MORE]] The boy sitting amongst papers and books and empty soda...
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Conclusions and Introductions
Maggie and John are characters created by my friend Sean.
London. Near Tower Bridge, overlooking the Thames. John was back in England after over a hundred and fifty years. He figured he may as well finish circumnavigating the world by visiting the place where he first got impressed into the Royal Navy so long ago. After years in the Americas and the Far East it was a nostalgic return to one of...
December 2012
2 posts
4 tags
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Christmas Cheer
There was a knock on her door frame. “Merry Christmas, Es.” Az stood in Esp’s doorway, wrapped in a scarf and a sweater. He held a slight package wrapped in festive colors in his hand. Esp pretended to check her wrist for a watch, “You seem to be quite a few days off.” More than a week and a half actually. She turned her chair around to face Az and tilted her head,...
October 2012
1 post
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Background Info: The Weave
Among the many breakthroughs in the early twenty-first century, the Weave was perhaps the most influential and far reaching, or at least had the potential to be the most influential and far reaching. The Weave was not extraordinary in concept or in implementation, but in its level of involvement and cooperation. Built by several corporations and governments working in tandem, the Weave proved to...
August 2012
1 post
July 2012
4 posts
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Space Horror
[[MORE]]On January 10th of the year 2196, Experimental Space Vessel UFS Lancelot abruptly ceased all communications with Mission Control without so much as a distress signal, roughly four light years away from home. Their FTL communication lines were filled with alternating static and silence. They were out too far for any rescue vessels to arrive on time. Mission Control estimated that the crew...
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John the Immortal
The character of John the Immortal was originally conceptualized by my friend Sean.
I’m not one for actual visitors. Not that I don’t like them so much as I just don’t get them. Sure, strangers swing by all the time seeking remedies to whatever supernatural thing ails them, and in one odd case what supernatural thing made them happy, but never a social visit. It may be because...
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Lex at Sunset
Silently, the sun dipped under the waterline, splashing Hong Kong in red and orange light. Everything in the bay area seemed bathed with red, as though through a filtered lens. Burgundy umbrellas stood as sleeping sentries over the empty beach. The graying sand was cool to touch, but still held on to some warmth from the day’s heat, embers of a dying day passing into night. Shadows stretched...
June 2012
3 posts
3 tags
Mahou Shoujo Cthulhu 2
I work part-time at a restaurant right outside the red light district. There are much better places I could be working, some of them in the red light district itself, but I find this the most interesting. I do delivery, one of three delivery boys and the only female. I basically spend my shifts patrolling and dropping off crappy Chinese. Boss tells me I’m not paid to put up with shitheads,...
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Mahou Shoujo Cthulhu
People say I look young for my age. That is true. They say I look around fifteen or sixteen, and I’m probably pushing twenty-five. They joke that they want to know what my secret is to keeping myself looking so young. I try to laugh it off without sounding too bitter. I joke back that I sold my soul for eternal youth and magic. The truth being a funny thing and all. I flip my cell phone...
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SHERLOCK AND THE MYSTERY OF THE SECOND SEASON...
Alright I know I’m late to the party and everything, but enough is enough and I can’t get this out of my head, so here goes. The more I think about it and the more I try not to think about it, the more I realize the second season finale of Sherlock is a piece of shit. The victim in this crime is the show and the mystery is what the writers were doing instead of looking over their script. The modus...
May 2012
6 posts
6 tags
This is so dumb
What am I doing, why am I doing it.
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Opening Up Loch
When pressed, Kei would reaffirm her belief that her relationship was pretty much perfect. When pressed, Loch would also reaffirm the same. When pressed and told Kei wouldn’t find out, Loch would hesitate.[[MORE]]
“Why do you even like me?”
A trap if there was ever any, disguised as an innocent, innocuous, insecure question. Do you say what they want to hear, a paltry...
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Lex
“Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.” Pretty little lies with dainty little teeth. In the off season, gymnasts were encouraged to try out other sports and activities to keep conditioning up. Especially those gymnasts from teams that competed year round. It was a chance to try something new, be someone different. Boxing was one of those choices. Kept arm strength up, developed the...
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Slice of Mike
“So who’s the new girl?” Mike was pointedly not doing his homework. He looked up from the guitar, “What new girl?” Loch pulled up a file and read off a note, “‘11:55 PM, D’Errant seen exiting club arm in arm with unknown Asian female in black cocktail dress, clearly intoxicated.’ and I don’t suppose your father is in town.” They...
ugh
You know what, I’m going to chalk everything up to finals stress and stuff and come back to this when they are over. I will probably find out that it wasn’t finals, I am just inept at putting words together into a story, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.
April 2012
9 posts
4 tags
4/20/12 Antagonists
For the longest time, Academy had no bad guys.
It was slice of life, Az and co. just hung out, dealt with their little dramas. Not novel material.
It’s not so much that they were necessary to create conflict so much that the conflict made them necessary. But to be frank even the conflict does not require that they be evil. Or even not nice. Just not always good. Which I think is the best...
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4/19/12 LOCH
So here is the problem with Loch.
Jonathan Lochmann is probably the least developed of all my characters. Everyone else has quirks and issues and complexities and Loch is nice.[[MORE]]
He’s the good kid, the foil to Az and Mike’s more “badboy” natures. Evil prevails because Good is dumb. Evil is interesting and seductive because Good is boring and frumpy.
And I have no...
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4/18/12 Fandoms?
So this stems from wondering what fandoms exist in this alternate world, and whether or not Mike is a total brony. (POSSIBLE) And somehow it arced back to what state the US is in all this.
[[MORE]] It’s pretty bad. Government lockdown on media outlets, most large corporations moving out to greener pastures, and China’s steady rise from developing nation to superpower hit the United...
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POST ALL THE DAYS
Okay.
Okay lets do this thing.
I don’t have writer’s block. To me, writer’s block implies that I sit in front of my word processor typing, scrapping, staring blankly, typing, scrapping, staring blankly, repeat, for hours at end, frustrated with my inability to write. This happens a little bit, definitely. But that feels more like regular drafting and editing. Not a block.
My...
joydom:
xiakha:
joydom:
Should I add a disclaimer or apology to everything I write? I was always against that kind of thing.
Never apologize for who you are, or what you write. Unless you find what you write to be offensive. Then apologize, I guess.
I don’t write who I am.
And I didn’t say you do. I guess I should’ve written “Unless you find who you are or what you...
joydom:
Should I add a disclaimer or apology to everything I write? I was always against that kind of thing.
Never apologize for who you are, or what you write. Unless you find what you write to be offensive. Then apologize, I guess.
2 tags
Don't Write What You Know →
Why fiction’s narrative and emotional integrity will always transcend the literal truth
Every Wednesday, I teach an introductory fiction workshop at Harvard University, and on the first day of class I pass out a bullet-pointed list of things the students should try hard to avoid. Don’t start a story with an alarm clock going off. Don’t end a story with the whole shebang having been a suicide...
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nebulae12 asked: Hi Ben! I told Carolyn about this site and I think she likes the Academy stories!
1 tag
how long before I am converted
chrysogenum:
joydom:
to Shizaya?
nooooooo noooooooooooo
NOOOOOOOO
February 2012
2 posts
4 tags
It Descends So Delicately
Small things first. The smell of her shampoo, the calluses on her palms, that single dimple when she smiled, the way she whistled while doing problem sets… Eri hummed a little song as she walked in front of Esp, her path as aimless as her tune. Exams were over for now, and they’d just walked out of some action flick that Eri wanted to check out. It was in Cantonese without subtitles, so neither of...
4 tags
Flaming Muffin Cult: Revealed!
This took too goddamn long to get done. orz
“So what are these singing muffins that you keep talking about?”
“Eh? Singing Muffins? You mean Flaming Muffin Cult?”
“Potentially. They’re a band?”
“Yep, well, technically. They’re all individual artists that sometimes get together to collaborate. And they tour together.”
“Oh,...
January 2012
8 posts
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ROBOT MASSAGE
So Eri came to the conclusion that she did not have a whole roommate. Hers was defective, or a robot.
“She doesn’t do anything but study, go to class, and sleep! Like seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her go to the bathroom.”
“Does she shower at least?” Kei didn’t look up from the scale she was weighing zinc on.
“What? Of...
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Flight
It wasn’t too hard to find Erica. If she needed to hide she was going to go up. …But this gym didn’t have direct roof access. Terri looked up at the ledge above the fire escape and sighed. How the heck did she get up there without breaking her neck? There was no way she did a running jump on the railing. Terri clambered onto the railing herself and did her best not to look down....
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December 2011
6 posts
4 tags
