|
Post by ch00beh on May 12, 2016 10:47:13 GMT -5
Hullo everyone! I'd like to start a new contest in the vein of Illustrated where someone posts one line writing prompts and everyone has a month to do a one post response. Nice and low barrier so people don't have to think about pesky things like canon or repercussions or any of that nonsense and can just flex those writing muscles. The rules are simple: 1) The winner of the last writing prompt posts a new prompt that can fit in this topic's subject line. I'll change the topic title to match. 2) Everyone has a month to respond with one post 3) OP judges the entries and the winner posts the next I'm keeping the replies to one post because I don't like dissertations and to keep things svelte. If you are so inspired that you want to do a multi-parter, feel free! But you only get one post judged. The rest can go into its own topic in Solo Works. For sample prompts, here are some of the ones that I've enjoyed from the reddits: - All superpowers come from capes. The bigger the cape, the stronger the superpower - The last minute of your life before the world ends. - Two men from The League of Absurd Weaponry decide to have a duel - In a world where constant clouds make the night pitch black and compasses have not been invented, you are a Wave Reader, one of very few who can guide ships on the right path by feel. - Dragon Skull- Georgia, 1904. A minster awaits sundown at a crossroads, where he intends to confront the Devil with an axe in hand and the Word of God on his lips. - A sweet, lovable, sandals-with-socks kind of dad is actually a cold (and highly sought after) assassin. - You're the person who keeps mowing lawns during the zombie apocalypse of The Walking Dead. I will post the first prompt on the 15th. Everyone get hype.
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on May 15, 2016 3:49:56 GMT -5
Alright! So for our first writing prompt, I give you all:
The sword did not perform as expected.
|
|
|
Post by The Evil Biscuit on May 15, 2016 17:37:56 GMT -5
'I'd like my refund, please.'
'Refund?'
'Yes, refund. The sword is defective.'
'Defective? Defective how?'
'It doesn't cut.'
'You're shitting me.'
'No sir, it doesn't cut, it's defective. I'd like my refund.'
'Of course it cuts! Give it here. Look, splits this paper fine as a barber's blade.'
'I swung it dozens of times. It doesn't cut. It only lands on the flat side. I've no use for a sword that only lands on the flat side.'
'The flat side! Why are you swinging it on the flat side?'
'I'm not swinging it on any side! I'm telling you it only lands on the flat side. It's defective!'
'Have you tried holding it a different way?'
'I've been handling swords my whole life! My method of holding a sword is just fine, thank you. In any case, there was no documentation included with the sword that specified that it must be held a certain way in order to cut. A sword ought to cut, that's what I think.'
'One would assume that the person doing the swinging might possess a basic knowledge of sword-side fundamentals.'
'Look, can I just get a refund? As I said, I've no use for a sword that doesn't cut.'
'It does cut, you fool, you've just seen me cut with it.'
'How can I be certain you're not holding it in a particular way? I must say, one of this really seems above board to me right now, what with you selling gag swords out of an otherwise reputable establishment.'
'I'm holding it in the way that every man holds a sword when he intends for it to cut. See here, where the edge lies. Prime cutting grip, that.'
'I've never seen anyone hold a sword like that in my life. In any case, I must reiterate that your sword included no disclaimer or diagram outlining proper cutting grip. I really think if you're going to sell such a complicated instrument you need to include the proper literature. That's misleading the customer.'
'I've never had a customer complain about a sword I've sold in all the years I've been in business, save for this particular instance right now.'
'Seriously, can we just get on with the refund? I need to get on with purchasing a sword that actually cuts; preferably from a more trustworthy vendor.'
'I can't issue a refund on the basis of you not being able to swing it correctly. That's operator error. The sword is perfectly fine.'
'Operator error! How dare you! I've been operating swords since before you were born! Decades of swinging all manner of swords - cutting swords, mind you - and now I come across a sword that doesn't cut, that only lands on the flat side, and you have the nerve to suggest that I'm doing something wrong? The very idea! Whatever happened to 'the customer is always right'?!'
'Obviously not written by someone experienced in defective cutting implements.'
'Just give me the refund already! I'll not spare another minute arguing with you over whether or not the sword cuts - the sword doesn't cut!'
'You're not getting a refund, there's noth- HEY! OW! Christ, that hurt!'
'See? A proper sword would have taken that arm off at the shoulder. This piece of shit just gives out welts!'
'Why did you hit me?!'
'To prove a point! This sword is crap! What use is a sword that only lands on the flat side?'
'You're swinging it on the flat side, you buffoon! Just turn it a little and oh no wait WAIT WA-'
*snikt*
*thump*
'Well, how about that.'
|
|
|
Post by Tout-Perd on May 18, 2016 17:55:24 GMT -5
Superlative. Transcendent. Appropriative. There were many words to describe the evolving cultural decor that bedecked the King Thomas as it soared over the world, but there wasn’t any denying that any effort or expense had been spared. Currently, they were in the skies over Japan, the last leg of their journey before return to their port of departure. The air was rich with the savory scent of Hibachi grills, and carried a distinct undertone of the nori seaweed and fresh fish for a variety of small sushi stands around the train. Walls scrolls and bamboo screens had deployed from hiding nooks within the train itself, instantly cloaking the opulence in the trappings of Nippon. One such piece that had been revealed was a playbill printed to resemble traditional ukiyo-e art. In the center was a sharply outlined sword, with what appeared to be a chorus of moaning souls rising from its blade. Beneath, in stylized but still legible calligraphy, the details for a performance had been scrawled. “Said to have bound the souls of the dozens of enemy soldiers it has slain, the Nagekinoken, or Wailing Blade, masterwork of the smith Matsushita Kenji, is considered to be a priceless treasure. Kept as an ancestral heirloom in the family for hundreds of years, it is said that the souls tied to the blade sing of their regret at having thrown their lives away in combat. From 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM, Matsushita Anji, descendant of Matushita Kenji, shall be unveiling the Nagekinoken for respectful observation.” Appended to the scroll, in stark contrast to the traditional trappings, stood a hastily scrawled yellow sticky note. “Due to unforseen circumstances, the Nagekinoken can not be presented as scheduled. Our humblest apologies to those who were anticipating the presentation of this priceless relic. Furthermore, the Matsushita estate and owners of the King Thomas are offering a reward to anybody who offers information leading to the recovery of the blade.” “Well, shit,” Prime sighed, as he finished reading the note. He felt a slender hand cup his well-muscled posterior, unannounced. “Not now, Nopcsa,” He grunted. “But you are going to get back to chasing me and trying to stab me, right?” The mindreader queried. “I... I’m going to need a moment,” Prime responded. He felt Nopcsa’s arm move up to pat him on the back. “There, there. I understand, buddy.” ------ Telrien threw the eleventh pillow on her bunk. She’d ran out of them in the sleeper car she was staying in, and resorted to pilfering them from both neighboring cars.
“Maybe that’ll be enough,” She muttered to herself.”
”OoOoOoOOOO,” The mound of pillows responded, sounding like a distant chorus of chanting Buddhist monks.
Telrien sighed.
“Looks like it’s time to raid room service.”
|
|
|
Post by Tout-Perd on May 18, 2016 18:58:41 GMT -5
- Two men from The League of Absurd Weaponry decide to have to have a duel any time two Lee characters fight. Also, can we do this like illustrated, EP award, prompted rates each on a scale of 1 to 10 11
|
|
|
Post by Loogs on May 19, 2016 4:03:09 GMT -5
no offense but are there really still people who care about EP
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Jun 18, 2016 17:34:35 GMT -5
Sorry for being late, but here are the results! BISCUIT: It had the Biscuit charm we all know and love, though I feel like the all dialogue approach wasn't as effective as it could've been. LEE: 9/10 would read slash fiction again. WINNER: LEE Tout-Perd , you may now pitch the next writing prompt. PS. I reserve the right to pick a prompt out of /r/writingprompts if the prompter is not prompt with the next prompt. lee pls don't show up for like a week cuz i found an amazing image prompt.
|
|
|
Post by Tout-Perd on Jun 19, 2016 20:50:59 GMT -5
Prompt: Something unusual is raining from the skies.
|
|
Lady V
Citizen of the Archipelago
I want it all, and I want it now!
Posts: 10
|
Post by Lady V on Jun 19, 2016 21:57:55 GMT -5
Blood, Crookes groaned, ducking his head back into the window and wiping the red splash off his long slim nose. Why did it have to be blood?
He should have smelled it. The iron content itself should have smacked him in the olfactory glands before he even looked outside. Lifting his fingers, he sniffed delicately, jerking back in surprise.
Well damn. He flicked out his tongue, just to confirm his suspicions. The taste was just barely there, meaning there wasn’t enough iron to really color the fluid, or even call it blood.
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Jun 21, 2016 13:57:01 GMT -5
Cypress Gallant spread another layer of oil on her disassembled rifle's bolt carrier to stop her hands from shaking. She adjusted a dirty rag in her dirtier hands and started working the bolt carrier's other side. Twenty five days in this hellhole. Twenty five days listening to moans of the dying get louder.Twenty five days too scared to light a candle after an unfamiliar sun set. Twenty five fucking days waiting for the cavalry that was supposed to be here in two.
A muffled explosion rattled through the abandoned office's walls. Cypress stopped cleaning and focused on her hearing. Above the sniffling of refugees around her, she heard another explosion, smaller this time, followed by a rattle of gunfire. Not alarmingly close, but not too far, either. Cypress hurriedly shoved the bolt carrier back into place and put her gun back together. Her hands were shaking again.
"Lietenant!" a hoarse voice shouted. Cypress turned her head as she twisted the last pin into place. "We need all guns to the north! Now!"
"Yes, sir!" Cypress responded. Her heart was racing. They had just moved yesterday! How had the worms figured out their new position so quickly?
Cypress scrambled to her feet and ran toward the northern wall, knuckles white while clenching her rifle. In moments, she was pressed up against an exterior facing wall, eyes stealing glances outside the window like the other dozen soldiers around her.
Movement. Cypress raised her rifle to point at a humanoid shambling down the street, but it flopped to the ground after a resounding crack from someone else's shot. Cypress was quietly thankful for the night; in the darkness, she couldn't see the worms wriggling away from its dying, human host.
Several more hosts emerged, and the soldiers took them down with veteran efficiency. After a minute, other than the bodies, the street was clear once more. Everyone kept their guns out for several more minutes before breathing a sigh of relief. Just a scout party. They'd have to move, though.
Just as Cypress lowered her rifle, she heard a low rumble in the distance. The other soldiers started to notice as the thunder rose in volume. Then it stopped.
A blood curdling scream pierced the night air, then the sound of hundreds of footsteps came again. Moments after, a crowd, no, a sea of humanoids surged from around the corner.
Cypress started firing immediately, as did everyone else. The bodies piled up, but the obstacles did little to slow the worms. Cypress released her spent magazine and slammed a new one inside.
The worms broke upon the lower floor like a wave crashing on the shore. The door was barricaded, but who knew how long that would hold...
"Fire Team Omega, do you read me?" came a voice from Cypress' radio through static. "Fire Team Omega, do you read me? This is the SSV Everest. Over."
Cypress grabbed the radio and hit a button. "SSV Everest, Fire Team Omega reads you. We're pinned down! Where are you?"
"Straight overhead. We see the worms. Beginning deployment."
Cypress just dropped the radio and started firing into the crowd again. Suddenly, something in the night sky flared. She looked up to see a flaming shape emerge from the thick clouds and slam into the ground. The first pod was followed by hundreds more, all raining onto the city. Drop pods, with fresh troops and more guns.
"It's finally raining, men. Halleluja."
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 16, 2016 10:15:17 GMT -5
I'd really like to post one but I'd need an extension, it's coming together really slowly. Is that okay?
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Jul 16, 2016 11:25:16 GMT -5
Technically this ends on the 18th as it started on the 18th. Is that enough time? Otherwise I'm fine extending to the 20th or something.
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 16, 2016 14:49:33 GMT -5
Definitely not enough time, sorry... Lee's judging, right? Lee, could I have another week? Ahh, he's probably not going to see this anyway, he's hard to find these days.
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Jul 17, 2016 10:50:09 GMT -5
Sounds like you should just do it
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 20, 2016 16:00:51 GMT -5
Well, a few more days won't make me hate this any less, so here you go.
He didn't mind the pricking of little pins in his palms and wrists, turning his hands over and over, letting the yellow crab climb from one to the other. It tickled more than it hurt. Maybe if he held his arm right, the crab would scuttle up and perch on his shoulder. He'd like that. Crabs, he didn't know, he should have been scared of 'em, same as spiders – what was a crab but a spider for the sea? – but he couldn't hate them. Spiders had more eyes than they should. Crabs didn't. Could be that was the difference. This little one had just the two eyes, enough for getting on with, big black-bean eyes on tiny beanstalks. He stood up and stretched out his left arm. The dark blue sky above was the same color as the sea ahead, except in the far distance where stripes of orange and pink and gold still squeezed through purple clouds. If he reached up just a bit toward that sky, the crab would hurry down his arm and live on his shoulder, and then he would be the old King of the coast, left and right as far as he could see, and make a throne of salty rocks where he and his pin-footed chancellor would sit and watch over the kingdom...
The crab fell off his arm and landed with a plop in the wet sand. He hunched down and tried to scoop it up as it dashed along the beach, spindly legs first carrying it one way, then zigzagging another way, until he stopped. The crab reached a cropping of loose stones and disappeared. He barely noticed. There was something else half-buried in the sand. He scraped away enough to pull it up, just before the low tide rolled back in and water swept around his feet and between his toes.
The bill was soaked through, muddy, and so bleached by sun and sand that he could only faintly make out the words BANK OF JAMAICA up top, and the woman's face – a thin face, not smiling, her hair wrapped up and hidden away beneath folds of cloth. Nanny of the Maroons. As for the words in the middle, he could read those just fine:
FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
It was the most money he had ever held in his life. He'd raced back that day, barefoot, from the soft sand to the wild grass to the cement and his tiny Bay Bottom house. Eager to show the prize to Madda, he'd circled right around to the back porch where he had known she'd be sitting in the lawn chair. Smoking?
Smoking – hey, why not. The smell of smoke was already filling his nostrils. He waved a falling ember away from his goggles and grimaced, remembering his mother's words.
"What you gwine do with it?"
He'd stared at her, not understanding why she wouldn't smile. "Spend it, Ma."
She'd laughed harshly. "Aright? Go down the store dem, wave dat quattie round? Who gwine take dat off you? Look 'pon dat filthy thing. Dem like to think you tiefed it off some dutty ragga."
"Hey, I found it, Ma, not stole it from no one. I found it on the beach..."
"So keep it, child. You try to spend dat in town, you'll pull more badda den it's worth. See it?" Yeah, yeah, she'd been smoking. He remembered the way his mother had of taking a drag off the cigarette with her eyes fixed unblinkingly upward, as if to move on, saying the conversation was over. When she shook her head, the braids shook too, for emphasis.
This time, though, he'd stuck on it. His face was falling. "You and me, we could trade, Madda. Ain't no one would think you stole it. You got some hundreds, we could—"
"I ain't touch dat renk ting," she'd snapped.
He'd snapped right back, then, clutching the frayed note in both hands. "Then I'll get another. Them at the bank, they'll give me 'long a new one. Clean and fresh, no one to say I stole it."
She'd tutted.
"Turn it roun', Roufus, and you tell what it say on the bottom."
There, on the other face of the bill, beneath the map of the island, crisscrossed with city names written in a script so faint now that they could have been mistaken for texturing, and beneath Port Royal's once storybook-neat row of houses, now smeared with mud, at the very bottom of the bill, was a faded but just barely legible name which he'd read aloud: "DE LA RUE."
"De La Rue," she had repeated. "In England, child. Where dem roll out wi money. You gwine poas it all the way off deh? Expeck dem draw you up a new one special?" He remembered her smiling, here, but didn't recall a trace of humor in that smile. She'd waved her hand, looking away from him. "Shit, way it is, dem ballheads be happier dem never see a Nanny 'gain. So de ting stand."
He hadn't known what she'd meant at the time and he'd been too angry to ask. He had left her on the back porch and stomped upstairs into his bedroom. The bill had gone into his bedside drawer, had stayed there for years, until he'd emptied that room out packing his things for college abroad. He'd figured five hundred dollars would get him a good way through living expenses in his first year in the States. He remembered looking up the conversion rate on a library computer. That had been a bad shock.
Twelve dollars and seventy-five cents.
Hell, and less, today. Be lucky if I got five for it...
He grabbed another one out of the air and turned it over in the palm of his glove. He peered at it through his goggles, watching the charred paper sizzle against the cowhide. Less than half. No good. He dropped it onto the cement and went off for another. They were tumbling from the sky, cartwheeling on the smoke, some still glowing a bright orange, some already pitch-black. There was one spinning almost in place, burning, trailing tiny embers, and he clapped it between his gloves to extinguish the flame. Definitely more than half. Good. He tucked it into the gym bag over his shoulder, still walking, and cursed when he almost tripped over a stray brick. Most of the southern wall had been taken out in the blast, leaving fragments of brick and steel strewn far into the parking lot. The nearest street lamp had been blown out. That wasn't a big deal, even at this time of night. The flames chewing up the warehouse from inside gave plenty of light for him to work by.
He'd hung around until well past sunset, long enough to be pretty sure the warehouse had cleared out. The boss had told him not to worry about that. Casualties here, he'd said, weren't to be tallied the same as casualties elsewhere. But Mayordomo couldn't say he saw things the same. Hey, call it an editorial touch. So far as he saw, he'd done all right; there was no one in the wreckage he could find. No screams. By and by the Babylon men would be howling their approach, but he'd be out of there long before the red and blue lights pulled in.
That was Mister Moneybags's first mistake: trying to find somewhere far away, out of sight, beneath suspicion. No neighborhoods for a mile around the warehouse complex, just flat meadows and scattered trees. Mayordomo knew the fear that must've led him to this place. He'd known it too, back in the States. But that same isolation that kept you invisible to regular folk only left you vulnerable when the wrong folk found you.
And – why not admit it? – Mayordomo had found his way to being some people's wrong folk.
Now being Miz Mangjeol's wrong folk, that, he regretted. Being Mister Moneybags's wrong folk, well, he couldn't say it was something to lose sleep over.
Taking a sharp breath as the air briefly fought the smoke, he plucked another bill out of the air and smoothed it out on his glove. Close to intact, this one. Twenty dollars. Nothing like the treasure he'd thought he'd found on the beach that day back home, but hey, they added up. He tucked it into the gym bag, almost grinning. Mistake number two: Not keeping your printing press underground. What kind of greenhorn was the boss up against, here?
That treasure; he wondered where it had ended up. Probably in a cardboard box in that storage space he'd rented back in the States. Gone now. He'd panicked when he had gotten wind they might be tracking him from the States, and sent up the last bomb he left on that continent. That was his rookie mistake. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, which only served to leave a smear of soot in its place, off the welding glove. The damn fool. There'd been good instruments in that storage space, good electronics, equipment. All lost, and so was Nanny, if he had left her there – not that getting burned to ash could've hurt her value all too much.
He crunched a smoldering bill to powder underfoot as he walked. Less than half. Not worth his time. Only so long. Make the minutes count.
No, he had never bothered De La Rue plc of Basingstoke, Hampshire, England for a replacement note, but he might just put the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing to the trouble. Split the burned bills up with Curtis and Pablo and a few other trusted friends, stagger it across a year or so, and send 'em all off, in batches, to be replaced. He knew now that his mother was right: the Brits would never have wanted to see Nanny's face again. But he had an idea the U.S. Bureau wouldn't mind swapping out a few twenties here and there.
Nanny was weak money but the American dollar was doing fine. Just fine.
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Aug 2, 2016 16:40:50 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Tout-Perd on Aug 4, 2016 15:42:01 GMT -5
Will have my ratings and judgment up tonight.
|
|
|
Post by Tout-Perd on Aug 5, 2016 13:13:12 GMT -5
So, my ratings: Lady V: About what I expected, which isn't to say it was a bad thing. About half an hour after I picked it, I was like "V's going rain of blood". That said, Grumpy Crookes is always fun, and it was well written. Rating: BChoobles: A solid little scifi piece. I guess I feel like I had a hard time getting an exact grasp on the nature of the setting/threat, but it was conveyed closely enough. Still, very solid, and I'm not sure if it was deliberate to have the pun go so off the tone of the rest of the piece, but it actually nicely derails the tension you built, creating a parallel sense of relief in the reader. APohatu: Jaw dropping. Great insight into a great character, some really nice, crisp phrasing, and an excellent payoff. C'est magnifique. A+Photu, your turn to pick a prompt.
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Aug 5, 2016 13:26:50 GMT -5
> Yeah, you were expecting to see your name in the paper today. But not for that reason.
|
|
|
Post by Silumas on Aug 8, 2016 22:31:57 GMT -5
Why in the Nine Hells is that creature mewling from that tree? Silumas scowled. Classes were due to start in the next few weeks, and the Dark One found himself wandering the Archipelago though the reason why still eluded him. He had tried to conquer this world more than a decade ago, sundered its landmass, shaken its nations to their cores, and now he planned to teach its powerful youth to prevent creatures like him, more powerful for him, from doing the same. Still, he could not answer why. Thyra had two days ago agreed to allow him to teach at Terminer Academy. He would instruct the eldest students in a variety of topics, not the least of which was his own specialty: Elementalism. As far as language, mathematics, science, and the other more mundane subjects were concerned, they were not Silumas' strong suit. Comparable to most on Earth, however, he was still an expert. Six thousand millenia had given him a lot of independent study time. I am Silumas, Archmagus, and she had to THINK about whether I was worthy of teaching the children of this world?
The Elementalist then decided to go roaming the lands of the Archipelago, and he had no idea the reason. He told himself it was to see the results of his invasion those many years ago. It did not take long. His first stop was a local eatery, recommended to him from a kindly old woman on her stoop drinking a glass of Tullamore Dew, a place called Caffery's. It was a bit of a dive but it was very interesting all the same. He ordered something called a milkshake, suddenly understanding how excellent it was that he did not, in fact, destroy this world. Humans, while short-lived and crass, are not a species that easily forgets a tyrant that comes close to enslaving the entire species. It was not long before one of his previous victims recognized the strange man wearing a perfectly tailored black and red suit, sipping upon a strawberry milkshake. A short time after that, a dozen police cars screeched to a halt surrounding the diner. "We have the building surrounded!" called the local authority through their bullhorn. The rest of the denizens dashed for the exit and Silumas made no attempt to stop them. He sat there for a while longer, sipping the rest of his milkshake even giving the officers a grin. A few more minutes would pass and the crash team would storm the diner, large guns leading larger men with one intent: arrest, or preferably kill, Silumas. The Magus, however, was not done with his milkshake. They reached a few feet from his booth and began screaming obscenities, saying something about hands on your head. Silumas paid the no attention, quietly sipping on his delicious dairy treat. The shouting stopped when a suited man walked into the room, his suit bulked out from the bulletproof vest. Why they felt the need to wear projectile protection when their target could easily boil their blood with a thought was, surprisingly, beyond Silumas' comprehension. The suit sat down at the booth across from Silumas, and placed his hands slowly, carefully, upon the table. Silumas took one final slurp of his milkshake, giving notice to the group of gentlemen surrounding him with weapons drawn for seemingly the first time. He gave the suit a sigh and a perked eyebrow, giving him permission to speak. "Mister…uh…" the man paused, realizing the terrorist, tyrant, criminal before him was only known by one name, "Silumas, you are under arrest." The suit stopped speaking and Silumas felt a small pinch in his back, as a needle dart shot into him. A dark purple fluid shot into his bloodstream, and Silumas frowned. Aside from the small pinch, there was no pain, so he did not feel a need to retaliate and slaughter everyone here. "That was a new toy of ours, nullifies Powers. Mixed with sedative, so you'll be feeling yourself getting drowsy soon…" the suit was suddenly far more confident, a smug smirk crawling across his face. Archmagus Silumas flexed his back and the dart fell out, and he tried to reform his body to close the small, but annoying, wound and he failed. His body was stuck in its current form. Then, he tried to shift Realms, and he failed at that too. The concern on his face was apparent, and the suit chuckled. "The cocktail we injected you with, somehow, removes abilities from its subjects that take you beyond those of us not so…blessed," the suit prattled on, and he motioned his men to come in an cuff the big, bad wolf. Unfortunately for him, and his men, Silumas' ability to be formed at will, his ability to shift Realms, those were things beyond the means of a simple human. Commanding the elements? That just required study and practice. The very water in the air froze when Silumas used Fire to suck the warmth out of the room, then a large gust of Air threw the strike team to the ground covered in small icicles. Aside from bumps, bruises, and the small scrapes, however, not a soul was harmed. Silumas stood, a balefire in his eyes, and grabbed the shaken suit by the neck. "And you believed a TOY would stop me?!" Silumas fumed, his voice projected to near ear-splitting levels with a small use of Air. The suit began to stammer apologies and beg for his life but Silumas, well dressed in his slick suit, just released him and stormed out the door. The police outside all opened fire, but with a simple manipulation of Earth, he caused the bullets to slam into the ground, all two-hundred and twelve shots that were fired crashed harmlessly into the asphalt beneath him. He stalked away with confused authority figures looking to one another for their next step. The suit finally made it outside and chased after Silumas, his fear not enough to hold him back. He caught up after half a minute and settled into stride beside the Magus, Silumas casting him a dark glance, but true to his vow to Thyra, he made no attempt to harm him. "What the hell…" the suit finally said, trying to understand why their concoction did not work. Silumas gave him no answer, just continued to stomp his sullen stomp away. The press had finally caught up and dozens of cameras were now following the very slow, very uneventful foot chase between himself and the suit. Lovely, the mortal media will make a spectacle of this…perhaps I should visit Thyra when the news hits, ensure our agreement is still in place.
That was when Silumas saw it, the kitten not more than a year old, meowing piteously from a nearby tree. "What is that?" Silumas pointed to the kitten, grabbing the agent by the collar. The agent fumbled with his words, trying to understand what Silumas was talking about before he finally saw the young cat in the tree. "The…the cat?" "Cat?" Silumas aid, forming his mouth around the words. It looked like a small, helpless, four-legged version of a race he once utilized a shock troops. "Why is it making that pathetic noise from its perch? Does it fly?" Silumas asked the suit, who more and more grew confused by Silumas' questions. "Fly? No…" the suit said, "its…its scared. It climbed up to a high place, and now it can't get down…." "Ah," Silumas said with understanding his eyes going from the agent to the cat in the tree, "how interesting." Silumas then reached his hand up towards the tree and the branches began to groan and strain under the weight of Life and Air bending the branches to form a sort of spiral staircase leading the poor thing straight to Silumas' hand. The agent, understanding the parallel, gulped loudly when he saw Silumas holding the kitten with a peculiar lack of empathy or care. Silumas held the kitten by the scruff of the neck, twisting and turning it about to take in its form. It was small, enough to stand comfortably in the Magus' hand. A tawny coat with interspaced white patches, and dark colored eyes that seemed to take in every detail. A shout from the home the tree belonged to drew the Magus's attention as a little girl, no more than seven ran up to the Magus with a much larger, similarly colored creature in her arms. "YOU FOUND SPRINKLES!" shouted the little girl at Silumas, and his head rocked back from the shock. He had not been shouted at in a very long time. "Sprinkles?" Silumas said suspiciously, "I suppose I have found it…" "Him," the little girl corrected, "you found him." "A he, then?" Silumas said bemused, a small smile forming on his face. "Yes! And this is his mommy!" she shouted, holding up her adult feline proudly. "A fine creature," Silumas said, truthfully and that smile growing, "I suppose you will be wanting your….Sprinkles back." He held the cat out for the young one to take from him, the suit's hand resting fruitlessly on his weapon afraid what the Magus may do to the child. "No…" the little girl said, pursing her lips as he came to a very important decision, "I think you need him." Silumas shook his head and jutted the kitten out towards her, "Nonsense, this is yours, you should keep it." " HIM!" the little girl stressed again, and stepped back, "Everyone needs a kitten! This one can be yours, mister!" Silumas chuckled, and pulled the cat into his chest. The kitten had become used to being held by the Magus and was now struggling to get down, the Magus soothed Sprinkles with a light brushing of his coat using his thumb. The agent, wide-eyed and having trouble really believing their current situation, and he jumped when Silumas began speaking to him, "My visit to your world, this time, is temporary, and peaceful. I bring you, nor anyone else, any harm. Leave me be, and I will continue to be that way. You, your men, and your people could not stop me when I did intend harm to you all. I am far stronger now than I was then, and you are the same. Come at me again, like you did today, and there will be casualties." "I am a…" Silumas pulled Sprinkles up further on his chest, far more visible, "protector of this world. For the time being, anyway….Lets keep it that way." Silumas was either unaware or did not care about all of the cameras taking his picture. The serum they had doused him with did not last more than fifteen minutes, as he was able to shift Realms back to his office on the campus. He paid no attention to mortal news and their headlines the next day. They showed his photo, holding his cat ever so lovingly while speaking with the agent.
VILLAIN RETURNS, ADOPTS CAT
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Aug 24, 2016 17:11:20 GMT -5
this story will never make sense so I am just going to poop it out now. The first thing I noticed about the future was the smell. Really, the lack of it. It smelled like an office old enough for the disinfectant to have faded, but not old enough for the carpets to have gotten musty. The temperature, too, was perfect. Too perfect. This wasn't like minus 60mil where everything was too hot, and it wasn't like the 9th where everything smelled like literal shit, but it definitely wasn't like minus 2.7 gig where the oxygen was fresh. The future felt sterile. Not that I'm complaining. Sterile would be welcome after that debacle a century ago. I flipped my handheld out of airplane mode and gave it a hot second to attach itself to the local network. It buzzed as it updated the time and date. 10AM on August 21st, 3527 CE. Plenty of time for that last incident to blow over. I checked the standings of my competition. Aaron was in second, and he was basically an epoch behind me. Dee had been in 3rd, but it looked like she messed up her time stream too hard after the last hop and was now stuck in some weird alternate Japan. No time to feel sorry for her, though. I wasn't this far ahead for nothing. My last objective was to find a hoverboard, and not one of those bullshit 21st ones. I had tried to find one last centry, but ended up causing an incident, to say the least. I started jogging past the quiet warehouses in the direction of tall buildings, hoping to find whatever they called sporting or electronic stores this year. Strangely, I didn't see any flying cars like in 34267. Those things were everywhere back then. I guess I did end up blowing the city's central control tower, but a hundred years should have been plenty of time to get back online, right? As I got closer to the city, I noticed that the buildings didn't have windows. I remembered trees lined these streets, too, but those seemed to have disappeared at some point. Lunchtime should have been approaching, but I didn't seen a single soul walking about. Did I somehow kill everyone? That would be really awkward. No, that wouldn't explain how everything was pristine. And my handheld definitely connected to something, so a network of some kind was still being maintained. Maybe it was a robot uprising? Aliens? Singularity? As if to answer my question, a pair of floating spheres zipped around a corner toward me, flashing an unfriendly red. Robot uprising it was. Before they could get any closer, I hit a button on my handheld, switching it to airplane mode and opening the time stream back up for me to jump into. I felt like I was seeing the entire world and absolutely nothing at the same time, scenes throughout history flickering by in a nearly indecipherable way. Nearly indecipherable. Like I said, I wasn't winning this scavenger hunt for nothing. I reached a hand out and felt the universe shudder as I fell 50 years backward. I was immediately engulfed in a sound I could only really describe as a sonic boom, except instead of breaking the sound barrier, I was breaking spacetime itself. The ringing in my ears left only a moment later, and I heard the almost familiar sounds of crickets and distant flying cars. I checked my handheld. Aaron was catching up. No time to think about what happened. I just needed to grab the hoverboard, not accidentally trigger the nuclear core, and make it back to my original time. Then this timeline would disappear and I wouldn't have to think about any robot uprising. I started jogging deeper into the city again. It didn't take long to find a fluorescent-lit pawn shop labelled with fading red letters. A pink hoverboard was stacked carelessly behind the window among other trinkets and gewgaws. I readied myself to go inside. Hopefully 50 years was enough time for my face to have faded into obscurity. The door chimed as I opened it. A smooth steel pillar with several crab like arms stood behind the counter. Its single red eye rotated to look at me. "Oh my. The messiah." The what?
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Sept 8, 2016 14:54:28 GMT -5
Since it's been over a month, should we wrap this up? Am I waiting on any more submissions?
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Sept 8, 2016 15:20:46 GMT -5
ya let's keep this as close to one month long per thing as possible. cadence cadence cadence
|
|
|
Post by Silumas on Sept 8, 2016 15:21:25 GMT -5
Agreed.
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Sept 8, 2016 21:49:46 GMT -5
MOOSE: Okay, I laughed out loud at the punchline, it was predictable but still a lot of cheesy fun. However, I have to question: Is this story canon? Definitely “Nanny” was, my entry in the last round, so since yours is about Silumas I assume you meant it to be. But this… does some weird things to ORP if it’s canon. The power-nullifying concoction is quite a thing to just drop in for the sake of a standoff, considering that it would pretty much completely upend the social landscape of the Archipelago for non-Powers to have a way to strip Powers of their abilities. But, even more than that, I’m hung up on the backstory here. Silumas fucked up the planet Earth and tried to enslave all humans? Less than two decades ago??? And people remember this event and Silumas himself so well that he could be recognized and surrounded within a few hours of making an appearance in public? ? You realize this means most of the people at Terminer were either alive when he committed these atrocities or have most certainly heard all about him since then. This makes it suddenly nonsense that no one knows who he is in the first few pages of (Dis)Orientation and everyone keeps calling him “the grumpy bald guy”. I’m sure that Silumas really did almost take over the world in an RP topic back in the day, but that was an era where continuity between different authors’ topics was not really a priority, and Tokyo got destroyed like every other week. In this current metagame, it’s asking a bit much to bring in a character responsible for such atrocities in the recent past that it becomes impossible for anyone not to know who he is. (You also have to get a lot more specific with the atrocities; I mean, “sundered its landmass”? What does that mean? Does that mean Australia isn’t a thing any more? Because I’ve been writing under the implicit assumption that Australia is still a thing.) Basically what I’m saying is we probably need to have a forum powwow about how to work Silumas’ backstory into the current setting a little more deftly. I want to get to the positives after that douchey defensive RP-warden rant, but I haven’t even touched on the actual substance of the story before us, and that unfortunately brings me to one more gripe. The truth is, I’ve become a little allergic to scenarios that boil down to “Look at all these anonymous chumps I hauled in by the busload in order to demonstrate how superior my character is to them” – whether that’s “Look at all these prissy anonymous popular-kid bullies, my character is so much more sensitive and unique than they are” or “Look at all these anonymous rich twits with their heads up their asses, and watch my character effortlessly outplay them” or, in this and most cases, “Look at all these dumb anonymous soldier-type mooks with their dumb guns, and marvel at how easily my character can overpower and vanquish them with a wave of his hand.” That’s pretty much what we’ve got here, and it’s just not that satisfying. The piece really suffers from refusing to grace “the suit” with so much as a name, or any relatable characterization at all, instead resorting to lazy you’re-not-allowed-to-like-this-guy tropes like “smug smirk” and “prattled on”. His hollow characterization makes the entire opposition to Silumas appear all the more hollow, and before long I really wish we could just get to the kitten that you telegraphed in the first sentence already because this confrontation is way too one-sided. But what I liked about the story, I really liked about it, and above all that is the occasional gem you throw in there about Silumas knowing things it wouldn’t be possible for an ordinary human to know. The bit about “all two hundred and twelve shots” is one example, where it’s amusing that he can count all the bullets in less time than it would have taken for them to hit him, but the detail that floored me was the color of the fluid. When I first read “A dark purple fluid shot into his bloodstream”, my initial reaction was “Oh, come on, that’s careless writing, Silumas can’t see what the color of the fluid is.” But then my second reaction was “Wait… but what if he knows anyway??” It’s totally appropriate to Silumas’s transcendent nature for him to have awareness of all things – even his own body – surpassing that of regular humans! Why the hell shouldn’t he be able to know the color of a fluid entering his bloodstream? What a cool, succinct, evocative way to express the fact that Silumas is functioning on an entirely different level from everyone around him. More of this cognitive and perceptual gamesmanship, please. I award this short story six mewling kittens. CHOOBS: Sorry that this is going to be shorter than the other review. Exactly because Moose’s story inspired so many quibbles ‘n’ gripes on my part, I ended up thinking about it a lot more. Plus there’s just the fact that anything so much as ORP-adjacent is pretty much guaranteed to fill me with way more gigantic feelings and opinions than anything not. (This isn’t ORP-adjacent, right? Like there’s no way this has anything to do with ORP. Like no one here is an incognito ORP character. Okay.) We already talked about it briefly and I know that my main criticism is the same as yours, which is that it’s an awesome scenario begging to be fleshed out much more than it is here. I think the bones are there, which is to say that the clues about what’s going on are dropped in exactly the right order, but we just want more meat. Coming from an author who loves intricate world-building, I’m disappointed that there are no imaginative strokes here about what the architecture of 3527 looks like, other than I guess that there are no windows. (Which is clever if everyone’s robits now, but I want to see what other civic-planning consequences a robit uprising would bring.) Likewise the pawn shop wants some more detail – this is a pawn shop in 3477, yeah? What the hell is on sale? All we get is “trinkets and gewgaws”. I want to see discarded cyborg brains and jetpack crystals! On the other hand, I guess there’s a counterargument that the point is that the protagonist isn’t super excited, disturbed, awed, or frightened by anything he sees, because he’s used to this game by now, and therefore it doesn’t make sense that he would relate the events in a way that invites excitement, disturbance, awe, or fright in the reader, instead relating everything very matter-of-fact. That makes sense, it’s just not super rewarding unless you compensate by developing the protagonist himself a lot more than he is developed here. He’s sort of a cipher. That said, this is a killer idea with a great, unexpected punchline, and I love some of the silly ideas like needing to put the phone in airplane mode to travel through time, and the creative alien design at the end. It’s just a story that would benefit from a little bit more of the Matriarch-style willingness to linger and breathe, as opposed to the classic Choobs “get to the point in as pithy a way as possible” approach. There’s a typo, by the way, where you wrote “34267” where I think you meant “3427”, and I wouldn’t bother pointing it out except that it’s the kind of story where a hasty reader could easily think you actually meant the year 34267. I award this short story two pink hoverboards. And two pink hoverboards beats six mewling kittens because you could use one hoverboard to rescue all six kittens and still have the other one left over to gather dust in your garage. So Choobs wins the round!
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Sept 9, 2016 8:30:32 GMT -5
Image Prompt: SLUMBER PARTY!!!!
|
|