Community Writing Contest #1

AGAINST: Libraries

There are few places on Earth bigger religions despise more than public libraries. These unholy places house so much heretic knowledge that one could easily mistake it for being the de-facto incarnation of hell proper on our flat Earth.

This library problem has now invaded modern gaming platforms that youngsters, such as myself, gets exposed to on a daily basis. These horrible abominations let us store our 18+ games more easily, away from prying eyes aka parents or lulzy moral preachers .

If you live somewhere in Sweden and are a child then it’s a fact that you can walk straight into a library and borrow explicit material, if it’s available. Alternatively borrow the WiFi to browse questionable content, I confirmed this with my local library. It’s basically our version of the second amendment that a lot of people want gone but even fewer dare touch. Almost Nobody want children exposed to the stuff but at the same time nobody want to be remembered as the one who stole my whole stash… Case 22 if you ask me but understandable.

Libraries can’t continue enlightening people, it doesn’t work. They become cynical, unproper but most of all lewd! Females leave kitchen to go their own way, help! This is pandemic. We have to do something and quick, before it get contagious and spread to generations down the line. Earlier this week I saw a female clad in… A short skirt! You know, those skirts that don’t go all the way to the floor!

I am convinced that this is libraries fault. This never happened during the middle-ages, you know when you had a bunch of monks running the monasteries that controlled the literature so that no sinful material would leak out and become part of mainstream media. If you wanted to be able to actually read the book you had bought from that shady third-part foreign merchant, then you also had to pay up for that at your local monastery. Otherwise you had to power level (teaching yourself), which simply wasn’t the highest priority back in the good old days.

[Goes without saying but nothing in this text is to be taken seriously, not even my terrible grammar. I am pro-libraries and all their uses :sweat_smile:]

My three prompts;

FOR: Genetically engineered catpeople for domestic ownership (inspired by this site https://www.catgirlcare.org/ I simply borrowed the concept without asking, and made it gender neutral in my prompt. Mod may remove this one at will if it doesn’t fit!).

AGAINST: The “Divine Comedy”.

INDIFFERENT: Foot fungi.

Edit: adding info.

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Less than a day to get your submissions in now. I’ll be reading them all and choosing a winner tomorrow.

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And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the crowning of the inaugural Thrive Community Writing Contest winner!

I’m pleased with the number, quality and variety of submissions. Clearly people had a lot of pent up anger about libraries and noses that needed some release. I’m happy to have provided that.

Since a few pieces in particular piqued my interest I’ve decided to list my top five entries. As the self-appointed judge, my opinion is obviously correct and irrefutable.

So, without further ado…


#5 - AGAINST: Aviation (@zenzonegaming)

As someone with a strong phobia of air travel myself, something about the visceral, no holds barred attack on the aviation industry struck a chord with me. Many went over the edge in their rants, but zenzomegaming appears to have redefined our entire concept of exaggeration in his pleas to ‘dig holes in the ground and bury the planes in them to send them back to the devil’.

#4 - FOR: Asteroid impacts (@OmnipotentFNarr)

OmnipotentFNarr’s multiple entries were all rants of the highest quality and worst judgement, but it was his rather quite convincing argument for the benefits of asteroid impacts that I found most enthralling. And apparently, ‘if we do survive, the crash site can have some neat goodies, like gold!’ which surely won’t corrupt the survivors into the very evils the impact hoped to destroy. Perfectly illogical, suitably driven, and just the right amount of sadistic to win him the fourth spot on my list.

#3 - FOR: Angry emojis (@DPHkraken)

Okay, writers. :rage: Y’all got a thing or two to learn :nerd_face: from Kraken :squid: who effortlessly combined the mediums of high concept prose like ‘Anger has remained constant - can you taint rage? No. Satirize it, make it faux - those are mere jests’ with emoji. :neutral_face: I didn’t read so much as experience this assault on all my senses. We are all blessed by the presence of :rage: a n g e r y :rage: thanks to Kraken’s convincing mixed-media piece on those annoying little internet images. :zipper_mouth_face::mask::exploding_head::sunglasses::sneezing_face::hot_face::hot_face::unamused::face_with_head_bandage::sneezing_face::sneezing_face::nauseated_face:

#2 - AGAINST: Water (@QuantumCrab)

W̟͎͞Á̫̖̰͖̯̮͟T̢̩̜E̙ͅR͍̰͢,̴̷̡̼̝͓̞̱ ҉̗̭͍̣̜̼̙̟W͓̥͔̟̻͟ͅA͕͎̤̺̬̮̩̞̙͜T͏̹̙͇̭̟͢E̤R̥̰̕͞ ̴EV̨͟ER͡Y̧̛W͝HE̕Ŗ̶E P͘L͞Ę̕A͝S҉̨E̸͏ ̶R̶̛E͠M̶O͘͡V́E̸͘ ́T̀͢͞Ḩ̛I͏S͘͘ ͏̧W̶̩̠̤̪̩͓̪̲͈̖̻̻͔͇̟͇̟̖͌̄̊͗̓̃̓̓́ͧͤ̽ͥ̈́͛̅̒̏͌ͅA̢̦͇̹͎ͬ̎ͧ̑̄̔ͬͮͥ̿ͧ̄̔̏͢T̗̝̘͉̗͍̝̞̥̫̟̫̋̋̉̎̂͋̍́É̶̾͛̄͂̔ͮ͆̈̓͐̍̌̍̽̎҉̴̴͎͕̜͇͎͍̞̱̖͙̜̭̮͉ͅRͤ̑̉̏̒̔ͤͥ̓ͨͩͧ̋̚͝͡͏͇̝͍̲͡

QuantumCrab achieved the pinnacle of opinionated absurdism as he described all the ways H2O can H2Obliterate you. I’m impressed by his use of sharp, fast sentences and grammatical parallelism to conjure up the image of someone sent into frenzy by water. I want to quote the whole thing because it’s all very well done. Just read it. The water is inside me, and I’m scared.

#1 - AGAINST: Thrive coming out (@Zahyyy)

It was never going to be anything else, was it? Zahyy uncovered a way to turn the task I thought would produce a quick laugh into a touching essay on the nature of our very own community. I might have teared up a little. Perhaps, deep in my heart, I even agree with him a little bit. After all, if it wasn’t for Thrive’s geological rate of progress, would I have been forced to start this contest to keep engagement up? I couldn’t put it better than ‘The developers are not just creating a rather ambitious game, they are bonding this wonderful community together’, so there you go.


Congratulations to the winners and thanks for the submissions, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that. Would anyone be in favour of similar writing exercises in future? I doubt I’ll use this exact premise again, at least at first, since I have a few more ideas inspired by LitSoc. Let me know what you think.

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Yes please, I would really like more writing exercises like this. This was great fun I really enjoyed it and thank you. :slightly_smiling_face:

Congratulations to the winners by the way! :+1:

I really enjoyed writing for this challenge, and would definitely enter in later iterations (2nd place, wooo!)
From the results, it seems that the indifferent topic just doesn’t allow for the compelling pieces that Against and For provide, so I would opt for removing those if there’s another challenge like this. Aside from that, I loved reading everyone’s entries!

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Thank you so much! I’m happy you liked it! I’m really flattered and quite not sure what to say except thank you! Also, I like to make people emotional, as I’m actually an alien that feeds off of the emotions of others.

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AGAINST GETTING 5TH PLACE IN COMMUNITY WRITING CONTEST"

5th place! 5TH PLACE!!! this is an outrage my work was perfection.

this is just a joke i am really happy to be in top 5

also is water removal surgery a thing i am hydrophobic :wink: :wink:

This is really a good thing for me . I would like to write more and get more experience. This is really enjoyable. And congrats to the toppers. Here’s the good guide for the community this site. It’s about spending our money wisely. Nowadays we are lacking this.

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When’s the next contest?

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Now.

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Is there any other contest coming on. Because i am very interested.

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As far as I know the third iteration of this contest is currently going on: Community Writing Contest #3