"It's Christie!" a female voice yelled from the other side. "Open up, asshole!"

Monty smirked and propelled his chair backward, rolling the short distance across the cramped room to grab the door handle and twist it open. Suddenly she was inside - five foot nine inches, with hair that took it up another three and spread out like a corona around her head. Loud and vital with the ripped neck of her white RELAX shirt down almost to her elbow. A modified Walkman was strapped to her thigh like a pistolero's prized revolver.

She slammed the door, kicking up the paper taped to the inside. A dot matrix rendition of Mary Lou Retton with the caption NOT! fluttered and settled back down.

"They fucking passed it! This is so fucking not cool." She tossed the box of disks in her hand onto his lap and leaned over him to tap out a cybersite code. His nostrils were infused with the scent of L.A. Looks. "Stare hard, retard," she murmured hoarsely, the fabric of her t-shirt stretching as she pressed into him.

The cursor blinked for a few seconds before the screen flooded with letters, as a four-color image of the Big Cheese filled in the top right corner.

"So what's on the disks?" Monty asked, leaning back to read over the side of Christie's hair. On the screen, the characters spelled out the end of the free world. Everything in this room was now punishable by fines, jail time, forcible service, or exportation to one of the corporate colonies overseas to spend a few years plugging code at gunpoint. The Man had finally come down on what the kids had been up to in the last decade or so, ever since the grad students at MIT and their home tape readers.

"Birthday present," she said, stretching back up. "I want a smoke. Let's go outside."

Monty glanced at her as she moved toward the door, then to the box, now slightly tilted on his lap, before picking it up and setting it on the desk. He tapped out an exit command as Christie bent down to relace her boot. The computer honked at him and he glanced back at the screen, retyping the command.

QUIT EVERYTHING?
Y/N

Hi, my name is Mr Editor, and I would like to point out that in three posts of prose, you have used exactly two different sentence structures. Please re-write this, but this time be a good writer.

is this like when I dialed my friends house number to connect to his computer so we could play diablo?

Out on the street, Monty slouched along past nearly-naked mannequins and giant screens blaring ads. The scrolling lines on the screens made his brain ache. The press of traffic on the sidewalk buffeted him from side to side as Christie strode next to him, oblivious to the people that parted around her. She took a drag and blew an acrid cloud into the face of a streetside laserdisk vendor that tried to stop her, driving him back cursing, the copy of Moonwalker slipping to the ground.

The giant screens on the Panasonic building were showing loops of smiles and handshakes. Twenty feet in front of him, a pair of thugs in riot gear pummeled a couple of afro-headed kids while a third smashed open their plastic case, sending floppy discs fluttering to the ground. The wind caught some and sent them cartwheeling into traffic. The sheep knotted up as they approached, crossing in two neat single-file lines, eyes straight ahead. Monty caught a blip of a garbled protest from one of the kids through a mouthful of blood.

The street was mostly empty - the ones that could afford to drive around didn't do it during the daytime around here, where they were as likely to be carjacked as have their tires slashed at an intersection. Monty tried to remember the last time that he had ridden in a car. His parents had owned one, back before the Arabs started pinching off the oil.

It had come at a bad time - poor people that would have spent their meager earnings on immediate gratifications could get their entertainment for free if they knew how. The technology was already out there, and people had the incentive to learn. The entertainment industry was drying up, and as more people turned to pirated information, the cycle was what? Exponential? Monty didn't know.

Ok. We're going to turn this into writer's workshop. Re-write this story, but this time, you're not allowed to start sentences with "The", or with any pronoun.

Also, you're trending towards being put in adjective jail. Man, you don't want to go to adjective jail. Better shape up now.

Oh, fuck yes. I would play the HELL outta this.

>>4663053
Why don't you go write a style manual, prescriptivist.

this is like, retro-cyberpunk. Next up is 3 megs of hot RAM right?

>>4663087 here
Also, this: >>4663072

>>4663087

Yes, I imagine it would be jarring to hear that your masterpiece is mediocre at its best, and downright pedestrian at its worst.

>>4663087

prescriptivist in this case being code for "person who knows how to write"

>>4663132
That wasn't me.

And your comments, while appreciated, will go unheeded.

>>4663095
>>4663072
Thanks. I thought it would make a fun setting.

>>4663132
That wasn't him.

>>4663138
No, it's code for "person who knows how everybody else should write no exceptions". What he's written, while it could probably be improved, is fine. What you've pointed out is bullshit. This just in: quality of writing is not achieved by starting sentences with a variety of parts of speech.

I don't know if I could play this. All the terrible haircuts i'd imagine all the characters having might kill me.

>>4663201
Blah blah blah

>>4663469
Touché... not.

you fucking suck so much i didn't even read it

besides everyone knows that modempunk is played out fire and sharpened sticks punk is the way to go

>cybersite code

lolwat?

>"Stare hard, retard."

I can't imagine anyone outside of Saved by the Bell actually saying this. Even then they would probably feel stupid for having said it 30 seconds later.

>thugs in riot gear

This just makes me think of gangers or maybe some kind of organized crime guy. Not what in all likelihood is supposed to be the member of an oppressive police force in this dystopian past as viewed through a filter of Blossom reruns.

>floppy discs fluttering... The wind caught some and sent them cartwheeling

Have you ever actually held a floppy disc? Do you know how hard the wind would have to be blowing to make a floppy disc act like paper or leaves or something round that would actually spin?

>>4663610
Probably referring to this type of floppy thats a lot thinner

>>4663647

I still doubt a 5 1/2 inch floppy would catch on the wind like that.

>>4663610
> I can't imagine anyone outside of Saved by the Bell actually saying this. Even then they would probably feel stupid for having said it 30 seconds later.
Yet somehow it's totally setting-appropriate. It's like somewhere before the second post you forgot what you were reading.

> This just makes me think of gangers or maybe some kind of organized crime guy.
Think better? It was perfectly clear to me. What kind of gangsters wander around in riot gear? That's strictly a police thing.

> Have you ever actually held a floppy disc? Do you know how hard the wind would have to be blowing to make a floppy disc act like paper or leaves or something round that would actually spin?
Not particularly hard.

>>4663671
Even the new floppies could get caught by a gust of wind.

This must be an RPG. Now.

>>4663610

underage B&

Ahh, the good old days. Days where high school teachers were telling their students they could never hope to possibly fill an entire gigabyte of space.

Now my father owns a terabyte hard drive.

>>4663671

Yeah. It would. Never actually used it, but I've held some of them in my hands, so I should know.

>>4663009
>>4663132
>>4663053
Here is how you judge if writing is bad. Does the writing stop you from reading/enjoying plot? It doesn't me, and so I don't think this is bad writing. Besides, do you know how much money Twilight has made?

>>4663784
That's write; the levels of WTF in this are all within acceptable parameters. I've read stuff with more problems from published authors. If people want to offer constructive criticism that's one thing, but nitpicking about insignificant things that catch your eye doesn't help OP or anyone else in this thread. Really, you think it's a big problem that the wind blew some minor object you don't think it could blow?

Your background color for this post does not fit the period of your story at all. Please fix this immediately.

>>4663784

Oh God, I got almost-compared to Twilight.

And just to clear up a point, in this divergent timeline I was imagining the disks to be about 4" wide.

>>4663053
Stop posting before you OD on commas.

>>4663899
Twilight for 80s nerds.

>>4662997
bullshit.
Conservatives love freedom (except when it applies to queers and abortion). why the fuck would Reagan pass it?

>>4663952
this is the same conservative who closed the machine gun registry and let spics in. also the same one who's a neocon (ex-democrap, supported new deal)

t;dr: stfu n00b

>>4663908
Oh shit.

>>4663952
It's bad for big business and adding to the clusterfuck that the country is in.

>>4663053
Earnst Wincent Wright challenges you to write an entire post without using the letter 'e'.

>>4663963
>spics
>democrap
>stfu n00b

Oh come on put some effort into it

>>4664015
That's asy to do.

>>4664035
I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I lolled.

>>4664015

But how is that difficult?

I'm all for it, OP.

Hacker 0: The Adventures of Zero Cool

In real modem punk, rick astley songs aren't some sick prank.

...It's the artist that brings back cherished memories of your highschool prom.

I wouldn't want to play modempunk... I already did when I was a kid.

"Oh man this 24k file is going to be so awesome when it finally loads."

>>4665233
Yes, but not everyone was so lucky.

I find myself quite often wishing I lived in the 80s.

Sooo...no more love for Modempunk?

>>4665971
Some of us carried around huge boxes of 5-1/4 diskettes instead of using "modems" it was faster.

Mullets, Tons of Hair Spray, Shit load of cash to spend on shit load of overpriced shit? 80's all over again?

This should be required watching for anyone wanting to play.

I was born in the ass end of the 80s. Was this pre or post Organ Trail?

>>4666002
IT'S THE EIGHTIES! DO LOTS OF COKE AND VOTE FOR RONALD REAGAN!

I remember 5-1/2 inch disks, and c:\; those heady days before the invention of DOS SHELL and 16-color monitors; when the earth was ruled by floppy disks and steel keyboards.

>>4666074
>>Organ Trail
>>Organ

>>4665979

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with magnetic tape.

>>4666085
SHIT! Oregon Trail! Fuck me I'm tired.

>>4665979
>>4666097
Hit Wikipedia, Search Sneakernet, ???, Profit.

The torn leather jacket look was popular back then, right?

Holy shit, guys. I'm a professional author and my editor bitches less than this. No, his writing isn't perfect but I've seen a heck of a lot worse. You're doing fine, OP, if you're trying to design a setting it's the concept that counts, getting the details down and fluffing it out are what losers like me are for.

RPG? Hell, this was my teen years... Google "Max Headroom" for more Modempunk goodness, then watch a few Human League videos on Youtube for inspiration.

This is going to be my next Savage Worlds one-shot. Thank you for the excellent idea...

>>4666269
GTFO Goto

>>4666296
> Max Headroom

Wo-o-o-o-ah there! Memory rush!

Modempunk? This is just normal cyberpunk, only written now instead of 20+ years ago.

My character is a slightly obese college dropout who made a name for himself in the sneaker-net community when he released the R-rated "Organ Trail", a blatant piece of trademark abuse and copyright infringement which subsequently became a huge hit among those students lucky enough to have unsupervised access to a state-of-the-art Apple ][.

>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEPq0FvFm3g&feature=related

God damn I hate standing up for people on the internet but if this was stupid LOL SO GAR writefaggotry about fucking Commissars, or a pathetic rapefic or something else horrifically unoriginal half of the posts would be F5F5F5F5F5F5F and MOARMOARMOAR.

OP's not the best writer. At least he's trying to create some atmosphere.

>>4666355
Damn it, I corrected my spelling!

>>4666486
Get over it faggot its pretentious shit. Blatant op in disguise

>>4666530
Pretentious? You must be kidding. This is basically Max Headroom, Hackers and all the other awesomely bad late eighties, early nineties computer obsessed shows/movies made into a setting.

Compared to this, fucking Shadowrun is pretentious.

Anyways, MOAR, OP. Also, F5.

Oh jeez.

I'll be honest - this is just something that I started writing when I was bored, and then I continued it later when I was bored again.

With all the shit I do to waste my day, Modempunk is pretty far down the list. That said, I can't promise there won't be more.

>In real modem punk, rick astley songs aren't some sick prank.
It wasn't a prank - being Astley'd isn't quite as bad here. At least it's not an ASCII goatse.