Fiction: The adventures of Buff Tidewell

[sebastian]

This is a story I wrote a few years back when I was a major participant in another forum. I wrote it for a contest in which I didn't win... but I think I was robbed, you be the judge.

I felt uncluding it as a .pdf attachments was better than trying to post it, it is not too terribly long.

With little modification it could easily be turned into ST fan fiction.


I thought with the sense of humor I have witnessed since I have been here you would like it.

Attachments:

[Cory Trese]

I like it ... awesome pulpy space drama!

[oldalchemist]

This is going to seem like an old person thing to say, but I think the story would be better if you cleaned up the language a bit. It really pulls me out of the story.

[slayernz]

Man you are sounding old ... it's like you're (gasp) in your 30s!
<grin>
/me ducks

[sebastian]

Its not age, it's preferences. Not all stories are for kids.

Edit: didnt mean to post to imply you are a kid. If the language was different it would appeal to a larger audience, I simply wrote as I was inspired. Some characters swear, some do not. Thats writing, at least to me.

[oldalchemist]

I don't mind swearing at all. I don't care for uninventive swearing. Hundreds or thousands of years of language evolution should find us using some new, better, nastier curses.

'Homosaywha?' was a real setting jerker for me. Suddenly, I was at the lunchtable in middle school and someone interrupted a conversation about Duran Duran. I was not in the cockpit of a dogfighting spaceship. "FUCKING RETARDED!" was similarly disruptive to the prose. I felt like Buff's cursing should have been influenced by his experiences with worm slime.

It's a cool story. I really wanted some aspect of the incident with the worm in the first half to contributed directly or indirectly to the defeat of the other pilot at the end. I've been told before that I sport a boner for Ibsen's tactics.

[slayernz]

Ha, I avoid "bastard" ("That Thulun bastard just tried to shoot at me") and "ass" ("I just got my ass handed to me by an amorous alien") in my posts in case some virtual moderating bot thwacks my persona into last week and you get to shout FUCKING RETARDED.

I think I will become less Disney and more Fox in future

Oh ... all of the above had nothing to do with the story that I haven't yet read.

[sebastian]

Oldalchemist: generally speaking i think my lack of skill caused me to be more base with the character. And with the referenced text, i am fairly sure that was the same thing I was thinking qhen i wrote it, just didn't expect it to be a story ruiner.

It might be fun to rewrite it, perhaps expand it. If only there were more time in my lil world.

[oldalchemist]

My point is that to predict future swears, you must also predict future prejudices.
In STRPG, prejudices seem to be facton vs. non-faction, spacer vs. planet dweller, etc.

'Homo,' 'retard,' and 'bastard' assume that we will still have sexual preference, mental disability, and wedlock prejudices in the far future. 'Damn' and 'hell' should lose force of meaning after we outgrow religion. We are likely to keep others as long as we continue to copulate and eliminate wastes.

I think 'ass' will stay, for when we lose our asses, we lose our humanity.

[slayernz]

... and alien ships will suddenly become usable to us

[sebastian]

Really good points, hadnt thought of it like that