Contest October-November 2025 Short Story Contest, voting and reading thread

Or you do it just once, because you're a legend

 

he was a giant, but not a fool

 

i could try to write a non-CD story and beat a CD-story. What a challenge that would be!
Will I triumph against such odds, making my status (of leader of LO short story contest) even more prestigious, or will I fall as an arrogant Icarus?

 

Scalenex Somewhat Late Reviews
The editing was good all around, except my piece, but even that was above the standard of my older work. So tack "nicely polished" on to all four reviews. Also, you can tack "efficient word use" on all four reviews since none of the pieces had a clunky word count.

"What Goes Around, Comes Around"


Imrahil's usually feature emotionally evocative word choices and exciting pacing, and this piece is no exception. An interesting take on the theme too.

A tiny part of me wants an explanation for why he's stuck in a time loop, but I guess Groundhog Day never properly explained it either. Reimer better figure out a way to make Andie MacDowell fall in love with him, or he's going to be in for a rough time.

Short and Scaly on the Streets IV: Cycles of Chaos



I haven't entered a lot of contests lately, I was thinking about Spawning of Bob lately and realized that my friendly rivalry with him drove me to write Lizardmen stories faster and better. He was inspiration for the first Short and Scaly on the Streets story I did.

My inspiration for this one was mostly me wanting to pad the story roster and make a dumb cycling pun. The addition of fake Chaos Dwarves was a last minute change cause I couldn't make up my mind how to Warhammerize the Biker Gang. I also had some writer's block on what villain to use, so I lazily made it Chaos Dwarves. I got three people who aren't Nightbringers to vote for this, so it would have won anyway. "Short and Scaly on the Streets 1" dominated the contest it was in. So I guess I have a winning franchise on my hands.

My Westhammer and Skink Chief McBragg entries didn't do near as good. I even did a Westhammer story with a Chaos Dwarf reference once, but it was too subtle for Nightbringer and he missed it. This piece had ZERO subtlety.

I feel a little bad that I won this contest because I put a lot more proverbial polish on the first Short and Scaly on the Streets story and by comparison I kind of phoned this one in. I was also using a spastic dying keyboard. The keyboard almost stopped me from entering. That's why I selfishly extended the contest deadline. That and my aforementioned writer's block on the villain.



This piece was well-written and I can very easily picture a skink priest talking to a Slann like this. An interesting take on the theme.

The downside of this is that reads as the introduction to a grander narrative more than it reads like a short story. Stories that are written in this format are always well-received and well-like but they never win the most votes. In other words, they are usually in the middle of pack, which isn't a horrible place to be considering how cool the pack here is on Lustria-Online.

Maybe if they included Chaos Dwarves, the Nightbringer bump could help, but I don't know.

"A Friend in the Dark"



I forgot to vote, so I'm out of luck. Unless some moderator temporary reopens the poll...oh wait, I'm some moderator.

I have a soft spot for the underdog in a poll, but I would have voted for this if it it was the frontrunner. I like TD4's writing style a lot and over the years he has gotten a disproportionate high number of Scalenex's personal votes.

And in honor of Bob, this piece certainly gets the Scalenex Cup for delicious horror and tragedy.

TD4 is consistently good at evocative word choice and balancing the "Lizard" and "Man" aspects of his characters. And this is the only piece that doesn't bend the rules on the classical short story three act structure. Intro-Conflict-Resolution. Every sentence either moves the plot forward or develops characterization. So not only was this piece in my wheelhouse, this was probably the best piece on a technical level.

 

Yes, and it had a mad dwarf in it trying to activate it. Westhammer, much like much 80s Warhammer universe, has the forces of Chaos lying dormant.

In the case of Westhammer, the Chaos gods were defeated at great cost. Or at least they seem to be defeated. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are rumored to be a reincarnation of the Chaos Gods (Famine is Slaanesh, an evolution of an insatiable hunger).

 

...and Join the Army was mine

 

It hurts me a lot, but that's the sad truth.

Just look at the Introduction thread. Back in the days there was a continuos flow, now it's stagnant.