Previous /icic/: >>7505920

You have until June 7th, 11:59 PM GMT, to illustrate stories from the latest “/lit/ Writing Competition” >>>/lit/24362698.
Countdown timer:
https://countingdownto.com/?c=6292217

Replied below are all 10 stories, ordered by votes.

Rules:
• Image dimensions: 2550 pixels wide × 3300 pixels high.
• No AI.
• The image must be suitable for blue boards (e.g. /lit/).
• You must “submit” the image by posting it ITT as a .png or .jpg

After the submission deadline, two Strawpolls will be created, one called “Illustrations of Winning Stories,” and one called “Illustrations of All Stories.”
Only illustrations pertaining to the top third of the placing stories—the top 4 out of 10 (rounding up), marked with a ◊ below—are “Winning Stories.”

The /icic/ winner of “Illustrations of Winning Stories,” will grace the front cover of May’s compilaiton book;
The /icic/ winner of “Illustrations of All Stories” will grace the back cover.
Every submitted illustration will accompany its story of inspiration in this month’s edition of /lwc/+/icic/, just like last-last month:
https://files.catbox.moe/hhcojy.pdf
>38.4 MB
>128 pages
(^ “/lwc/+/icic/ March 2025”)

And a big thank-you to all who participated in last-last month’s /icic/—it was a very special collaboration.
Now let’s see what May has in store~

>◊ Tie for 1st —“The Inquisition” by LeDuc
https://rentry.co/TheInquisitionLWC
>◊ Tie for 1st — “Pyre” by qualx
https://rentry.co/oxpvhohg
>◊ Tie for 1st — “The Bransward Estate” by Meadowlisp
https://rentry.co/TheBranswardEstate
>◊ 4th — “Catfishing” by meteor
https://rentry.co/p29m63tw
>5th — “Man Nr. 5” by PIGS +
https://rentry.co/fvxkfy3y
>6th — “Betsy, of course” by BetsyOfCourse (aka yodo)
https://rentry.co/Betsyofcourse
>7th — “Paumier” by paumier
https://rentry.co/qzctz4ts
>8th — “GODD” by Nomenklatura+77
https://rentry.co/anvuf3pu
>Tie for Last — “A Tumult of Gumdrops” by Alain Delon Nationalist
https://rentry.co/uhgy8yhui
>Tie for Last — “Rendezvous at Noontide” by ineptia (aka me, anoïsía)
https://rentry.co/Rendezvous_at_Noontide_by_ineptia

And all were written with the following in mind:
>Theme Requirement: The loss of favourite/local hangout
>Character Requirement: Must have a secret identity/work for a clandestine organisation or intelligence agency
Please peruse the /lit/ thread for more talk on each story: >>>/lit/24339428 >>>/lit/24362698
Strawpoll results: https://strawpoll.com/kogjRjNv2g6/results

>>7567906 (OP)
I might play along

>>7567906 (OP)
Really good thread! Hope people contribute!

This sounds like a lot of homework before I can even pick up a pencil, and with less than a month too.

Reminds me of /m/ag which ended up dying

Text-to-speech MP3:

https://files.catbox.moe/4kh057.mp3
>24.5 MB

>0:00:13 — ◊ “The Inquisition” by LeDuc
>0:08:24 — ◊ “Pyre” by qualx
>0:17:25 — ◊ “The Bransward Estate” by Meadowlisp
>0:27:05 — ◊ “Catfishing” by meteor
>0:43:51 — “Man Nr. 5” by PIGS +
>0:52:13 — “Betsy, of course” by BetsyOfCourse (aka yodo)
>0:58:00 — “Paumier” by paumier
>1:06:19 — “GODD” by Nomenklatura+77
>1:11:26 — “A Tumult of Gumdrops” by Alain Delon Nationalist
>1:19:48 — “Rendezvous at Noontide” by ineptia (aka me, anoïsía)

“Man Nr. 5” by PIGS +
https://rentry.co/fvxkfy3y

A portrait artist diagnosed with Obsessive Framing develops an almost “Rear Window”(/“Disturbia”) relationship with an enigmatic, blank-page figure in the opposite building.
This stranger becomes their most intriguing subject—Man Nr. 5—whom the protagonist strains to the edge of sense to render correctly.

Visual Themes:
• Framing —As a child, the protagonist was traumatized by the fleeting glimpse through their window of a
>young man, a roof worker…a respected community figure, a musician, writer, and tennis pro
falling to his unwitnessed death.
This psychic wound—
>a tic where I had to frame everything I saw within my mind. My relationships, my studies, my work, my life — they were all windows.
—superpowers the protagonist into becoming a successful painter, the window-looking canvas now their lightning rod.
• Bohemianism — In the wake of a great regime’s collapse, this creative main-character’s “golden years” were when
>me along with a group of burgeoning artists started squatting in an old diplomatic residency.
>Musicians, writers, painters, photographers, directors, designers, and actors frequented the residence and flourished.
While the setting is not explicitly stated as Russia/U.S.S.R., this painter does later hold an exhibition in Moscow.
• Scocophilia — For subjects, the protagonist
>had gotten into the habit of stationing myself behind a curtain, telescopic camera in hand, scouring opposing buildings, documenting life as seen through windows.
• Obsession — An excerpt of the narrator’s central mania with Man Nr. 5:
>His eyes. They had an emptiness about them. A non-existent line of vision. His face — a dud, almost see-through — spoke of nothing. A walking canvas. I became enamoured. I made him my mister nobody. I sketched endlessly trying to figure out which placing of the lip, furling of the brow, or sinking of the cheek best conveyed his non-being.

“Paumier” by paumier
https://rentry.co/qzctz4ts

Who is Paumier?
An investigator that the main character, Amar, is waiting for at some bar—and whom we never meet.
Twiddling his thumbs, Amar reflects on his pinballing life, going from a teacher to now a journalist, then reminiscing all the way back to his nostalgia-bittered days as a highschooler.
Feelings of inadequacy plagued his young mind, until his solid friend-group became anything but.

Visual Themes
• Dereliction — The story opens in a “delapidated” drinking establishment. The owner, Santosh, is on his last legs financially, but Amar—who used to stake Santosh—presently couldn’t care less about his plight, paying zilch for his dirty-glassed drinks.
• Friendship — As a student, the self-esteemless Amar had 4 friends: Radhika, Neil, Saeed, Priya:
>Despite this underlying gloom, I was perhaps the happiest when I was among them, laughing, speaking, fighting. It was perfect. It felt good to be known, seen.
• Highschool Romance — Amar <3’d Radhika:
>the first time she uttered my name I was embarrassingly infatuated with her, the idea of her.
(Saeed <3’d Priya too.)
• Being Overwhelmed — While fine with his friends one-on-one, hanging out together would make Amar’s anxieties go on full-blast:
>I found myself on the edge of our little group.
>I was always on guard, my attention darting from one to another,
• “Severed from the past” — Amar and his 4 friends
>congregated on the steps of the emergency staircase crawling down the wall of the gym building under the shade of the neem trees
but years later,
>the garden behind the gym was razed down to make way for a group of tennis courts.
After graduating he
>cut all contact with them and any other classmates

Scenes
• Highly implied the story’s set in India.
• Amar blows up at Niel after getting his glasses volleyballed off; loses his friends soon after.
• Walking in on Niel & Radhika at a café mortifies an adult Amar.

Bump.

Any thoughts on any of the stories?

>>7572011
this would make for good ntr if they weren't jeets

“Pyre” by qualx
https://rentry.co/oxpvhohg

“The Swan Dive”—an around-the-clock, interstate diner—is all this story’s nobody-spook narrator has left.
Between bouts of continent-spanning, barbarian-thwarting “work,” they occupy the back booth, surreptitiously observing its unremarkable clientele.
Why?
After nearly four decades, to
>avoid the fear that I'd missed out on something special.
However, Phoebe Swan, the owner, becomes someone extremely special—a kindred spirit whose casual act of defiance ignites a pyre of finality inside her last patron.

Visual Themes:
• Ash — From “ashtrays,” to lines like
>One woman, whose name fills my mouth with ash,
to paying via a cigarette-spent tabletop—
>There was something so haunting about leaving that $20 bill amongst all those ashes,
—ash, the hallmark of quietus, pervades the narration.
Phoebe spread that cigarette ash over the table because The Swan Dive is to be sold and demolished.
• Pyre — While nothing goes up in flames in the story proper (save a cigarette’s “cherry”), near the end the MC gets the urge to set The Swan Dive ablaze:
>I became fascinated by the image of a monument to timelessness, defeated by time, howling one final howl before evolving into ash.

Scenes:
The Swan Dive — Except for the fact that it doesn’t have ashtrays anymore—
>Phoebe Swan, banned smoking after divorcing her chimney of a husband
—nothing concrete is described about the diner’s interior, but speaking abstractly,
>it was an extension of [Phoebe]. Every square inch of this dump was another novella, and her devotion to its authenticity bordered on romantic.
“One Final Conversation” — On an otherwise empty night, Phoebe approaches the MC, their feet up on the opposite seat.
Smoking together, she informs them
>"Gotta sell the buildin', friend."
quietly waving her palm to curb the narrator’s dismay.
Gas Station — The next day, the MC sees the doomed diner and fantasizes burning it.

Bump.

17 days remain.

I'm working on one! But I don't want to be the only one

>>7579026
I'm not working on one right now, but if time frees up, I plan on giving it a go.
I'm sure others would be interested, but they're too busy posting in their shitty social media clout threads, crab threads, and encouragement thread, to actually fucking draw.
Actual art challenge thread and drawing threads always do worse than threads that just chat BS.

>>7579026
I might do one, but not before next week

>>7579026
>>7579037
>>7579058
I should draw something. Kinda stupid if I didn't. I can draw. I'll see what I can do. I'll post something next week, hope the thread stays bumped.

Should be starting on one this week..

>>7583767
same, just finished my commission, so now I gotta....*shudder* read

Bump

Bump again.

this thing kinda got cucked by the site shutdown didn't it

>>7588206
Yeah, but I still got a few days left, I'm gonna try

yodo, if you’re lurking, do you have access to the “Who voted what?” of the May /lwc/ Strawpoll?
https://strawpoll.com/kogjRjNv2g6/results
If not, don’t worry about it.
I included these details in the “Poll Results” section of the March book, and just want to do the same for May if I can.

>>7589664
Thanks for keeping this going, look forward to seeing what people come up with. I finally wrote the coda for Lease Lands if you're still interested:
>https://rentry.co/lease_lands_heng

>>7581752
Definitely submit something dude, if you have time. Cool linocut, like an album cover for a psychedelic rock band

Sorry I missed this month, hard times and all.
i'll try again next time

>>7594377
>Sorry I missed this month, hard times and all.
>i'll try again next time
No worries; hope the times are less hard.

Final bump...

kek we suck

>Time's up
>Zero illustrations
It's okay.
Thank-you to anyone on /ic/ who read May's stories!

And now June's /lwc/ is currently underway--still lots of time to get a start if you'd like to write!
>>>/lit/24448432

>>7592059
>I finally wrote the coda for Lease Lands if you're still interested
Heng, you are an amazing author.
Your work deserves the world.
I really am too fortunate in knowing you.

>>7601031
Thanks heaps ineptia, that means so much to me. Don't let the puritans in lwc stifle you, keep shining the way you want to. I'm a big fan of all your storytelling in whatever format, so you do you. I'll read anything you write. <3

I'm busy with a new story so no lwc sub from me this month (again, dammit) but I'll keep monitoring the new thread. Look forward to reading your incognito story if you find the time, and here's hoping you, meteor and MeadowFreud keep dominating the podium. Cheers

>>7601031
sorry, bro
I had every intention of doing something but shit just got in the way
honestly, a month just isn't that much time to read stuff and decide on a scene, comp, etc, there's a reason drawthread requests should be readable at a glance and the drawing challenges here just have a picture and an acronym, composing original pieces is work

what is this?