Finish the Story Contest - Week #45!
Artwork by the wondrous Simone Nork Denti
A contest with a pot of 10 STEEM + 4 @steembasicincome shares? You're in the right place!
208 @steembasicincome shares awarded till now, plus 22.558 SBD and 103 STEEM, through the contest in 44 weeks!
What awaits within the Bananafish treasure chest?
1st place: n. 5 STEEM
2nd place: n. 3 STEEM
3rd place: n. 2 STEEM
popular vote: n. 2 steembasicincome share (remember to vote your favorite!)
Best comment to the stories: n. 2 steembasicincome shares
Good morning/afternoon, chops! This is yer Comrade Professor Doctor @theironfelix writing here today. Today I gonna oversee oure operations here and ensure ye writers do yer best as y'all grapple with this beginning piece today. Don't worry, I shall be there on the front lines ready to fight with y'all. But what speaks of oure @f3nix? He's currently gonna drive all of ye chops towards the LZ, or Landing Zone, that we need to go today, so get ready!
Speaking of future LZs that we need to get ready for... what is that K-enhanced banner up there depicting? Could that dude, who's playing the drum, be Tio Billy from the renowned Tortillas de Pelo punk-rock band?? But of course, the new contest "Quest in the Realms" is nearing the launching stage! Sharpen your pens, restock those oil wells and fill up a nice cup of coffee oure beloved potassium appreciators, since something never seen on Steemit is coming this month for you right from the K-deity creative mind. The Quest in the Realms will reward a brave adventurer with a 30 STEEM PRIZE. It's an original format that will throw you in a multiple endings story and - at the same time - in a treasure hunt among the Realms. All the Bananafish Knights are scribbling like sloths under LSD to deliver you a unique and rewarding experience with more than 50 episodes and 10 different endings. Stay tuned!
To speak more obscenely: this pre-QITR week's tale has been given to us from the prophet himself, @f3nix. Whereas last week we had the talented haijin, @marcoriccardi, who still runs the Mizu No Oto contest, we got the OG writer and contest host providing another prompt for us acolytes. May I dare utter that it shall inspire some hyope, not that empty word that's called hype, for a QITR near you? Well, let's see how much hyope we can generate for the QITR, tell everybody and yer grandmotha' about it!
Map of the Bananafish Realms from a piratey perspective!
Tell a friend about the contest!
Join the Bananafish Realms discord chat for fresh updates and other amenities.
Vote, vote, vote your favorite story in the comments!
Use the #finishthestory tag.
Try to post your story the earliest possible and not at the last moment (or after the results! argh!)
Respect the dreadful 500 words limit! o_0
Help our contest & workshop to grow by giving it some visibility.
And now.. let's dive into the story!
Blue Inferno for Tres Culos
"They're coming outta the walls! They're coming outta the goddamn walls!"
Tres Culos awoke startled, at the sound of his own raving nightmare. A muffled sound that multiplied in the bottled and synthetic sounds of a dinghy seen from the inside.
Where the hell was he?
Around him, a blue claustrophobic hell jolted convulsively, smashing him repeatedly against plastic walls encrusted with unspeakable miasmas.
"I was hoping that hell was more spacious and above all less shitty, in the literal sense of the term." He thought as a trail of excremental smell slapped him almost with the same physical strength of the umpteenth jolt.
Tres Culos was still too stunned and disoriented to react to that torture. He tried to faint again, but the smell did not allow it. Even the after-effects of what looked like a colossal hangover couldn't help him.
Now that he was slowly focusing on himself, he tasted something different in his mouth than the usual rancid of the after-booze. Something bitter. Something that moved jerkily.
"Yearrrrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhh!" He spat and screamed together. On the grey floor stood a cockroach still tangled in Tres Culos' saliva. The brown insect seemed to look at him scornfully as if it wanted to say "Wassup, never seen a roach?" If it had a small arm, it would surely have shaken his fist as a challenge to the wide-eyed Tortillas De Pelo bass player.
"Mum, there's a screaming toilet!" On the sidewalk of Allerton Avenue, a child tried to interfere in the conversation between his mother and the neighbour with the only result of receiving a frowning look.
For Tres Culos, the revelation took place progressively, triggered by the irreverent attitude of the cockroach. The bassist's eyes slowly moved from the insect to the wall ahead of him. On the blue-spotted plastic stood an inverted heart that could very well be interpreted as a bum: he knew that sign. A ubiquitous symbol in all rock festivals in which he had participated.
The brand of the renowned Montezuma porta-potties. He was imprisoned inside a fucking chemical bath.
He tried to open the door. He tried to undermine, crack, push his shoulder against the bloody door, but there was nothing to be done. At the umpteenth jolt, another moment of awareness struck him: the door would not open because it was pressed against other toilets, all piled above a van in movement.
He screamed asking for help until almost vomiting. And it was between one gagging and the other that he heard a guitar riff coming weakly through the wall. His beady eyes widened as his already fine lips blanched and stretched out in surprise.
"Machete is that you! What the hell are you doing here?!"
"Hi Tres, did you hear this riff?" Answered the unmistakable voice of the Tortillas guitarist.
"Machete are you telling me that while we die slowly because of the shitty smells, your only idea is to play? And then, for God's sake, why were you in a toilet with the guitar? "
The presence of the guitarist made his hypothesis of an accidental post-concert kidnapping unlikely.
"Très .." The guitarist continued complaining "There's very little we can do. Have you ever heard of the legend of the Masonic porta-potties association?"
"If there was Mendoza, he would take us out with one of his plans." Tres Culos thought desperately.
"This guitar riff is really cool. If only there was Tìo Billy, I would ask him to follow me with the drums." Machete thought.
Let’s grow together!
Following the voting trail is a way to make sure you always support the other participants to the Bananafish contests, automatically upvoting the posts (but not the comments) @bananafish upvotes. @foffelius, @steelochlaver, @f3nix, @marcoriccardi, @anixio, @gwilberiol, @brisby, @calluna, @ntowl, @dirge, @iamthegray, @seesladen, @theironfelix, @letalis-laetitia, @vdux are already in the trail.
If you’re interested, here you can find all the information needed.
Join the fun! Here is how this contest works:
An unfinished fiction story or a script is posted.
You finish it with your own post or a comment in the comment section. A limit of 500 words is recommended.
WIN 10 STEEM + 4 @steembasicincome shares to the writers with the best endings and comments.
Vote your favorite story here!
Wow this was a tricky one this week, I was torn between the wonderful flights of fancy our beloved band went on, but in the end, voting for the non human ending by @agmoore
Edit: Damn... if it isn't too late... please can i change my vote to tristan? I woke up thinking about this in the night, i really loved agmoore's entry, there were so many great ones again, but going to have to change it (sorry!!) i just keep thinking about his notbutt gig, and the clues, and the way he plays the cockroach. Damn.
Every time it is very difficult to choose. I'll be brief: I find that the final of @calluna is a cut above all others for the quality of writing, but this time I would like to give my vote to @agmoore because she did something that no one had yet done in the FtS: she used the story as a pretext to tell us an anecdote of her childhood and to give us many interesting information about entomology and even... robotics!
Plus, I already like those little and very organized cockroaches!
Just read @tristancarax's post. The interest in where this story goes next gets my vote for this story this week.
I'd love to vote for myself and make this a tie, but my vote goes to @agmoore whose imagination weaved an awesome story for this week's ending.
I admire so much in each of the stories-- there's craft, suspense, lots and lots of feces :)--but I have to give my vote to @marcoriccardi on at least two counts:
1]I don't think I would have posted my far out piece about pooping cockroaches if Marco hadn't jumped into the fecal universe with such gusto
2]I don't know how he came up with some of those gems:
I knew my piece could never be more over-the-top than his.
So, Marco, bravo!
I have to go with Agmoore's rampage of the roaches! Plus, 'the Thing' is a good way to describe Tres Culos. 😜
I congratulate you, Prof. Felix Ph.D. for this successful presentation. Hyope and rivers of grog as it should be nunc et semper, in sæcula sæculorum (amen).
Hello, folks of the Realms! With this sort of QITR prequel, I wanted to introduce a bit of Tortilla madness before the party begins. I have to admit that I particularly enjoyed desecrating the wise atmosphere created by Marco's lovely fable. This is a divertissement, a no strings attached, little naughty story. I hope you'll have fun in finishing it as much as I had fun in starting. Cheers and good luck to all!
Dear @f3nix,
<<<<3333
I shall be watching and seeing how this contest generates hyope for QITR!
With Hyope-n-Grog,
Comrade Prof. Dr. Victor.
Here it is. It was fun once I typed it all out and started to cut away stuff to find what worked.
https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@tristancarax/blue-inferno-for-tres-culos
Thank yah for yer entry @tristancarax, glad to hear that ‘twas fun for yah to write this all out. That was the plan with Dr. @f3nix’s prompt, if it wasn’t, then we wouldn’t be here now.
With Comradely love,
Comrade Prof. Dr. Victor
Cutting for a writer is like eating kids but it's necessary 😜
Hey! I like eating kids!
Golosone!!!
The strong wind blew this story from my home to this contest.
https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@vasigo/blue-inferno-for-tres-culos-my-entry-to-finish-the-story-45
Well, this entry must’ve been blessed by the winds to not be torn up if it made it here. I salute to that as a fellow Slav.
Slava!
Chwała!
May I skip a Tortillas episode? Nope! I HAD TO participate!
https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@marcoriccardi/blue-inferno-for-tres-culos-finish-the-story-45
Ah, the original one comes back to flex them muscles. Welcome and may we see what yer ending hides that may reveal what the true Tortillas would do... Assuming yer the true god of the Tortillas. Well, we shall see and may we not a sense of where we are. Ga galanga! Let's see what the Mizu No Oto expert has elected to do with this FTS ending!~
With Comradely love,
Comrade Prof. Dr. Victor
I'm not the true god of the Tortillas. Once I asked what's the god of each Tortilla and got these answers:
Mendo - The King in Yellow
Machete - Guitars
Tres Culos - Drugs
Tìo Billy - Booze
All togheter - Punk, Dad @f3nix and the Bananafish Tribe!
Oh, okay. Well yah like the cute Japanese-clothed Spooky at least? Anyways, I shall be heading out...
Tosses all conspiratorial notes linking @marcoriccardi as the mastermind who will use haikus to summon the Tortillas to begin some Second coming of Christ scenario involving shit storms. Walks away like an espresso depresso.
For the second time, @theironfelix, I invented the Tortillas . Sole, unique and proud inventor of these 4 pieces of scum 😂😉
What? Can’t joke around and have a lil’ fun with messing around? What a buzz kill~
Who's trolling who here ¯_(ツ)_/¯ :^p
I squeaked in under the wire. Hadn't quite edited to my satisfaction, but don't really understand the deadline in EST (yes, I know, ignorant), so I posted tonight, after 11 pm.
I thought of this ending as soon as I read the story, but didn't know if it might be too "out there". Marco's rendition reassured me :))
Here it is: The Cockroach Rules
Well, with the power of the internet, any time zones can be converted to a measure that's intelligible to people!~ But to let yah exist for a moment, will get to reading this tomorrow and see how much the cockroaches have assembled to raise up their armies. Hopefully a nice, tightknit group of lovely cockroaches that teaches Tres-Culos the powers of crapology~
With Comradely love,
Comrade Prof. Dr. Victor
Thank you, Comrade, for that response. It's funny that you describe my story almost exactly and yet haven't read it! Your 'animated' presence at the helm makes this contest particularly dynamic this week.
Glad I didn't miss the deadline. I was a little out of sorts this past weekend and that dimmed my prospects of participating. But I rallied :))
Looks like we all posted at the same time, ha ha:
https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@cyemela/finish-the-story-week-45-blue-inferno-for-tres-culos-bananafish
Darn ye (y'all) to pieces, looks like ye people just got in my inking hour for now I shall terrorize yah with upvotes and resteems! (Give me a solid 8 hours though to actually upvote, VP needs to heal up a bit.) Instead of saving it for the last day, I get terrorized with it popping up now! ARRRRRRRGH!
It never rains, it pours, or in the case of these faeces filled prompt
Well, if there ever was a dedicated and/or memer award to hand out [rest of this message was censored by Spooky's Secret Services].
This one had me stumped for a while, but in the end, the old shit-gods (not to be confused with our wonderful banana deity ;) ) delivered the vaguest of ideas, which i have hammered out for you today!
https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@calluna/blue-inferno-for-tres-culos-finish-the-story-entry
Well, we shall see if yah really were stumped or just using one of yer many humble brag cards to get away with delivering another excellent work. Anyways, let’s see if the defecation-dieties gave yah a good path to make an excellent story.
I really didn't think there was any way I would think of anything but thought I better wrack my brains (and Brians, they do come up with great ideas on the wrack) and see if I could make an offering seen as you're at the helm ;)
Wow, what a start that was hard to follow up but there is my try.
https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@stever82/my-entry-to-the-finish-the-story-contest-week-45
Congrats on that @curie vote! Will get to reading your entry for it seems like you’ve done an exceptional job to follow up on the threads left by Dr. @f3nix
I had some free time to finish this story
Slippery snake thou art be to think thee could just slip this by. Well, I shall give a proper read tomorrow but I shall do the upvotes-n-resteems now I guess. Anyways, welcome to the 1st Blood crew. Let's see how much hyope yah got in yah to finish the story before we all embark on the QITR adventure.
With Comradely love,
Comrade Prof. Dr. Victor