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I'm glad you liked it. In my mind, one of the most interesting parts of an unlikely alliance is how those alliances are formed, which is why my story focused on that aspect.

Thanks for reading!

I'm really impressed with your dialog. You did a good job of making it flow naturally, and resisted the urge to have your characters spout exposition.

I struggle a little bit with the plot--it seems a little too convenient for both groups to get everything they ever wanted and become so powerful with such ease. Overcoming adversity gives the audience a chance to stand up and cheer for the protagonists, which is something we want to do.

You've got some interesting ideas here, but I don't think 1000 words was enough to develop them in. As it stands, this feels more like the genealogy chapters of Genesis than a completed story.

Something that may have helped would have been to tell the story from the molds perspective. The way it is right now, I'm missing a thread of continuity that would have helped to keep me engaged.

I definitely intended it to be an Orc Clan (thus the Clan Chief title). I did stray from the Games Workshop Cockney Ork trope on purpose--I went with more of an Aiel vibe.

Don't worry too much, I love a good clickbait title. At some point, I would love to hear the story of how she got thrown in jail (which I assume is what the title references).

That's a fair note. I was experimenting with using strict first person, and wanted to take advantage of the ability to address the reader directly. In narrative, that was supposed to be the Guild Leader reporting to the other Dwarven Guilds, but I did a bad job of exposing that to anyone who isn't already in my head ;-

I don't love the ending. It seems to come out of nowhere, and it implies a frankly insane level of foresight. If you're able to engineer that encounter, you're definitely beyond the point of needing the orc's help.

Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't feel like a deal, it feels like a trick. That could work for other themes, but for "unlikely allies" there's too much betrayal in my mind.

An interesting twist on what counts as an ally. I suppose that if they ask first, all's fair :-)

This was awesome! A great example of unexpected allies providing a way out of a challenging situation. I particularly like the fact that you managed to evoke the setting without it explicitly being a war story--I think this adds a lot of depth

Making the alliance between two antagonists (and making the dark elves seem like the more reasonable faction) was an interesting subversion of the trope.

Glad you made it in. This is definitely one of the better submissions I've read.

This was great! I love how you managed to figure out how to create an alliance without speaking.

One minor nitpick, I found this sentence confusing " 

Others like the creature huddled together, strands of their being pulled away by the savage power of the voidgate". On careful inspection, it seems like you're using "being" as a noun, but when I first read it I thought you were missing a word (e.g. strands of their bodies being pulled away).

Great work as always.

Well done! This was really well written and a good use of the theme.

Hopefully we learn more of the relationship between Arrago and Beras in future writing jams.

Which one of the PDFs is the submission?

There's an interesting start to a (much longer) story here, but it seems almost completely unrelated to the writing prompt. Assuming there is a longer story that you're working on, I'm interested in seeing where this goes. 

So, from an intellectual perspective, I'm intrigued by your subversion of the "emotionless robot" trope. On the other hand, what you've ended up with is something basically unrecognizable to me. If you'd been able to contrast Crystal's behavior with other RL individuals, this could have been a way to make them an interesting individual, but as it is, I'm left without something that is recognizably OPR.

This was a fun submission to read (and congratulations on subverting my expectations for your setting--I was expecting Robot Legions and got Duchies instead).

One more round of proofreading would have made this a top contender in my mind. You've got some sentence fragments that broke me out of the story, unfortunately. Still, I really enjoyed this submission and am looking forward to seeing you participate in future writing jams.

So, I found your writing quite good from a technical level, but I ran out of suspension of disbelief when two armies that were literally in the act of fighting suddenly decide to be friends instead. Unlikely allies is a good thing, but unplausible allies requires more work on your part to help me accept.

So, I want to read how the Vampire Police arrested someone for Tax Evasion! That title is awesome, and I'd love to hear the story behind it.

As it is, your story is very well written, and probably fits the theme better than the story from your title would. I expect this to rank highly.

This was a fun story, thanks!

I do think the adherence to theme was your weakest category. I definitely see how this does fit the theme of unlikely allies, but I wish it felt more like Grek and the foreman had worked together to get out of the cell. In this version of the story, it felt more like Grek escaped than the pair of them escaping.

I enjoyed your writing and am looking forward to more in future writing jams.

This was a very well written story. In only a few words, you managed to establish 5 different characters, and there's definitely enough here to expand into more stories in the future.

Unfortunately, I don't think it fits the theme very well at all. You have a single set of protagonists and a single set of antagonists, and both feel pretty monolithic. With more space to develop your characters, you might be able to make Donoghue and Fenton feel like unlikely allies, but all you've managed in the space given is to establish that they're not the best of friends.

Hopefully you join future writing jams, I really appreciated your writing ability.

That was fun! Just a couple of minor notes.

Your psuedo-terminal formatting, while thematic, made parts of the story much harder to read than necessary. Similarly, I'd recommend Italics rather than ALL CAPS for the robot dialog--all caps is surprisingly hard to read.

I also wish you'd managed to fit some of the actual working together into your submission, rather than just giving a footnote about it. The 1k word limit is pretty challenging, though, so I understand why that didn't happen.

Definitely one of the better submissions I've read so far!

I don't really see how this fits the theme. I guess you could say that the uprising slaves are an unlikely alliance, but that doesn't feel developed enough for me to give this very high marks on adherence to theme.

I'm also not really sure how this fits into OPR's universe. I assume (both from the title and the technology level) that this is supposed to be a Grimdark Future entry, but I don't recognize any of the factions in the story.

Thanks for submitting.

I like the idea of a military group rebelling against authority and working with the people they were oppressing. I wish you had gotten to that idea a little sooner, so we could see the effects of that alliance.

Unfortunately, it feels like your prose got in the way of the story you're trying to tell. Having just two long paragraphs left the whole thing feeling rushed, and you really could have done with a quick check for typos.

Thanks for submitting! I hope to read something from you again next time

You've come up with a very interesting setting for a story. Unfortunately, you've kind of forgotten to actually tell a story in that setting. This reads like the introduction to a much longer story (that I'd be interested in reading) rather than something that can stand on it's own.

I also feel like you've missed out on the theme. You tried to tie things in with the last paragraph, but that felt very much like an afterthought. A better way to include the theme might have been to have Captain Steele work with someone in order to find the Wandering Bazaar.

As a small side note, I found it distracting how many times you used "The Wandering Bazaar" in a relatively short wordcount. Varying the way you refer to it would probably help the flow of your writing.

I don't know if you're able to update your submission, but you've included the word document instead of a PDF version.

I have some comments, but I'll wait until you've had a chance to try and fix your submission first ;-)

That was delightful! I love the idea of a change daemon getting taken down by a couple of good ol' boys willing to hunker down and get to work.

I love finding a submission that totally outclasses mine. This was an excellent use of the prompt!

I ran out of space to explain more clearly--it wasn't actually the Hive Lord the second time, it was a group of Shadow Hunters that stayed behind and gradually learned how to take over the base.

I see two weaknesses in your story. First, it seems divorced from the Age of Fantasy setting--it mostly feels like you wrote a story about present-day high school and then palette swapped in some AoF trappings. Second, the ending felt forced; you don't win a fist fight in a ring by being a good strategist.

Your dialog was impressively natural, especially given the word count constraints. Thanks for sharing!

This was great! I do wish her execution had actually happened before the attack--with this order, it feels like she committed suicide just before she would have been rescued.

I like your story, and you definitely get props for actually making a coat of arms to accompany it! 

I do think it would fit the theme a little better if Antonio had done something unexpected or clever--it kind of felt like he tried to do a straight up fight, then ran away when it turned out the enemy was stronger than him.

I loved it! I also disagree with those who don't see it following the theme - Estoria was very definitely playing the part of strength in the narrative.

My only nitpick is that you have a typo in the 6th paragraph of the second column, "Estoria moved a second pawn to capture the one Estoria put forward". I'm pretty sure that Estoria was capturing K-7S2's pawn, not their own ;-)

I really liked your story, but I struggle to see the theme. Two ambush predators fighting doesn't give me the contrast that I want from "Strength vs Intelligence"

I wish you had done a lot less telling and a lot more showing.

Rather than telling me that the Orks are strong, give me a scene where an unyielding horde ignores their own losses and smashes through a defensive line. Instead of telling me that the Battle Brothers successfully set traps, explain how they pulled off an ambush, and the difference that makes. 

I had a hard time following the change in perspective, probably because they were both told in the first person. I'd recommend adding some kind of a visual break to let the reader know who is who.

Yep, you got it