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Write Your Butt Off 358/II.8 prompts HD Final Chapter Prologue


Benice
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Tomorrow is the Weekend

Spoiler

It's December 31st, 2022, and World War III is starting.

That's not what they've been calling in the news. It probably will be a while before they do. But that's what it is, and it's what everyone knows is happening, even if they don't think to use the exact words. Part of you hopes that you won't get drafted- you're not doing anything important enough to merit an exemption. Another part of you doesn't really care. If worse comes to worse, you could hop the border to Mexico, like how they went to Canada to stay out of Vietnam. Canada will probably enforce the draft this time, so Mexico it is.

Tomorrow is Sunday.

Friday ended at 3 AM on Saturday, and Saturday started at 2 PM. You spent the whole day online. Despite how late you slept in, you still feel tired, and after a brief moment of consideration, you decide you don't actually care to see the ball drop in Times Square. You turn off your computer, leaving your room completely dark. By the light of your phone you drag yourself to bed, crawl under the discount covers, and for the first time in weeks, let sleep overtake you at a decent hour.

"Wake up!" Your eyes peel open and you see your brother, who you were pretty sure had disappeared to the Northwest years earlier. "It's Saturday!" You blink at him. He looks significantly younger. "It's the first day of 2005!"

Wordlessly you sit up under your old comforter. You look around and see your old room, typically messy, your mattress on the floor because they didn't have enough bed frames for everyone. A barely-working CRT is on the floor to the side, a lava lamp is on your desk. Your hands are smaller and younger. You feel light, and suddenly realize there was a vacuous feeling in your chest based on its sudden absence. You're a kid again.

"Where's my phone?" You ask.
"It's in the living room," your brother answers. "It's not like mom and dad have another outlet for the landline, they're not going to move it."
You shake your head and blink many times. "No cell phones?"
"They still won't let me have a blackberry! If they're not going to get me one before they get dad one, they should just get dad one!"

There's no computer in your room. The only one you find is in the living room, exactly where you remember it being. You hear the sounds of Vista as you boot it up. You open up internet explorer, and Yahoo! is your default browser. You hesitate, knowing that if this is really what it seems, you might unleash something onto yourself and to the world. You have to know though. Your hands begin typing.

George W. Bush is the president. Donald Trump is a TV star, and a democrat. The best superhero movie in the world is Spider-Man 2, which is a few months old, and rumors swirl around the web about what people think will be the sixth and last Star Wars movie. Archer is captain of the Enterprise, which you wouldn't know was a thing for years.

You can get Chicken Fries and Burger King and Cereal Straws at Walmart. Chuck-E-Cheese is still popular, and finding animatronics creepy is an in-joke for adults. Michael Jackson is still alive, and MTV is still a music channel.

Malls are brimming with bright futures, moving from store to thriving store. Radioshack and H. H. Greg are titans in terms of electronics stores. Toys R Us still sells N64 games. Nintendo fans are arguing with Sony fans about whether Ocarina of Time is better than Final Fantasy 7 on GameFAQs. Reddit doesn't exist, but it's founder does.

MySpace dominates social media, and Amazon only sells books. Twitter and YouTube don't exist. James Rolfe has just started uploading Angry Video Game Nerd videos to his website- everyone shares videos on their personal pages or on Newgrounds. Every fandom has a selection of dedicated "web sites", proboards forums and Geocities webpages, but there are no servers or subreddits.

The internet feels wild, the future feels free.

After hours of scouring websites you forgot existed, trying to find ones you realize don't exist yet, you truly feel the weight of what has happened settle on you. Right then your mother tells you to get off the computer, staring at the screen for two hours like that will hurt you eyes. You press power on the bulky, beige plastic tower, finally feeling the full weight of what has happened press down on you.

You have to stop the war in Afghanistan. You need to warn everyone about the Supreme Court! Break the story on Epstein! They couldn't have known about that at the time, right? But if they would just believe you...

Your mother walks by as you walk away from the computer. She kisses you on the head, and tells you to have a good time with your brother. It would be a waste to sit on that computer all the time. Your breathing slows, and you stare blankly ahead.

Your mother asks if you're okay. You say you are, and that you want to invite some friends over. She agrees. You ask if you can order pizza for everyone, and your mother relents. With a hug, she goes to see a friend from church. She tells you she'll be back soon, and to be good for your step-dad until she gets back.

You walk up to the landline phone and pull it from the wall. You stop and stare, trying desperately to remember the old numbers, and slowly they come back to you. The first digit, then the second, and a like a cascade, you remember all of them at once, the old cylinders roaring to life once again.

You feel choked up, but after an awkward introduction, you manage to ask your best friend to come over, your friend whom you haven't spoken to in years. You invite over someone else, a boy you would forget about until you heard he had died. The brother and sister who live across the street, both shocked to hear you invite both of them, which you never would have done the first time you lived out this day. Memories come rushing back, each one further breaking the dam holding them back.

You decide to just take it easy.

Between tears, laughter, shock, and excitement, you ask your brother to help you get set up, and he begrudgingly agrees.

You and your brother pull out Mario Kart: Double Dash!! while your step-dad orders stuffed-crust from Pizza Hut. One cheese, two pepperoni. You smile to yourself as you settle in, controller gripped as you lean against the foot of the couch. You stare at the little memory card poking out of the console, and the candy-colored controllers waiting for your friends to pick them up. The silver one has a wonky stick, so someone will be stuck using that or your little sister's Hello Kitty controller.

You didn't know it at the time, but life doesn't get any better than this.

 

Edited by AnonymousSpeed
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I shan't be able to update the thread until about 9:30 P.M PST today, and all entries will be accepted 'till around then!

Sadly, I won't be getting mine in despite the fact that I liked my idea.

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I actually would throw together my entry...only I'm on holiday now away from the computer. So typing a full story on my phone last minute would probably be awful (not only is typing on phones awkward, this particular phone has a very spiteful spell checker). For what it's worth my idea was to write a story about Lucius Malfoy and the other Death Eaters getting drunk during the Qudditch World Cup and then doing something comically stupid. Which is a canon thing just entirely off screen. Would have been the recipe for disaster prompt.

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Title: Red dyed Gray

Spoiler

The world he wanted to build, the peace he wanted to achieve...

He won't live to see it, the man realized at death's doorsteps.

Then again, it would only be just that way.

He always thought that everything he did will be worth it.

The deaths, the sacrifices, the pain.

The evil things he had to do in order to achieve what he thought would be a good world.

Yet he only achieved darkness that almost consumed the world.

He wanted a world free of corruption, yet it become much more corrupt than it ever was before him.

He wanted a world free of discrimination, yet it became a world full of it.

He wanted a world where no childrens cry...

Instead he got a world built on the tears and blood of massacred children.

A son lost to the darkness.

A daughter lost to the light.

A brother lost to the flames he himself CREATED.

And the man wonders, where did he go wrong?

Was it when he decided to work with the inheritors of darkness?

Was it when he betrayed the warrior of the light?

Or was it...

When he fell in love with a women holding the blood of both light and darkness?

As the light inheritor's blade descends upon him, the Emperor of Flame wonders if those who didn't dye their grayness red will be able to achieve the world he always dreamt of.

Pretty short, but i hope that suffices^^

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Title: An Inquisitor's Letter

Words: 2868

Entry:

I hope you guys enjoy it, and any feedback is welcome!

Edited by Newtype06
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Poll is up! Because I'm a slowpoke, it's gonna be rather abbreviated-Voting ends tomorrow at midnight. Happy reading, all!

 

I wish I'd managed to get mine in-My concept was basically "A group of bored detectives decide to speedrun stopping criminals", obviously going for the recipe for disaster prompt. Oh well, maybe next time.

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14 hours ago, Benice said:

Poll is up! Because I'm a slowpoke, it's gonna be rather abbreviated-Voting ends tomorrow at midnight. Happy reading, all!

 

I wish I'd managed to get mine in-My concept was basically "A group of bored detectives decide to speedrun stopping criminals", obviously going for the recipe for disaster prompt. Oh well, maybe next time.

You missed my entry mate XP

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On 4/4/2022 at 7:12 PM, TheSilentChloey said:

So uh this happened:

Title: Light and Dark

Words: ~1,000

And yes, you won't get it.  That's the point.

Mine is here lol

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I don't often critique because I think I'm horrible at it and others can give better feedback than I can, but I'll give it a shot since I didn't write anything this month.

@TheSilentChloey

Spoiler

I liked the meta angle you went with this, although it was a slightly confusing read. I know that was kind of the point, but I wish I could have understood it better. From what I can gather, though, is it supposed to be based on a real conversation you had with a friend?

Regardless, you do a nice job of establishing what kind of relationship these characters have, even if we don't know much about the characters themselves.

@AnonymousSpeed

Spoiler

This is just nostalgia bait, and I know it's just nostalgia bait since it's literally the "wake up, it's 2005!" meme in story format, but I live for this kind of stuff, so this gets a metaphorical gold star from me. Honestly, you had me at cereal straws.

I love the detail you put into this, and really, it's only something a 2000s kid could truly connect with. Thankfully, I'm a 2000s kid. It's a neat narrative about what someone would do if they had the opportunity to go back in time, and I think the choices the character (our character?) makes are perfectly reasonable. Simply put, I think it's very "human," and excellently encapsulates the time period, even if how it fits the prompt isn't immediately obvious.

@Shrimpolaris

Spoiler

Very short and sweet, but a nice perspective on Arvis' final moments. I didn't even realize it was about Arvis until the very end, actually. He's definitely one of the most driven characters in the series when it comes to getting what he wants, even at the cost of morals, so what you wrote is a perfect fit for the prompt.

I think taking advantage of the forum's text coloring was also a clever way to contrast the light and dark themes of this piece, too. Really cool!

@Newtype06

Spoiler

This was a great, well written and fleshed out story and fits the prompt incredibly well. Normally, I don't typically care much for stories in first person, but this was well done. I think it's important that it's in first person so the reader can really understand the position of the protagonist and the lengths an individual would go to for their faith, especially one of the church.

Even though those of the church can be viewed as forces for good, the church in this story really feels morally ambiguous later on. At first, the protagonist is saved when good comes to vanquish evil. Later on, he joins the side of good to continue the crusade against "evil." It turns out that some of the "evil" forces in this story aren't necessarily evil, nor do they entirely feel like it either, but rather they act on instincts, whether it be to bury the past or simply to survive.

I think the conversation between the protagonist and the villager feels a tad awkward, but everything else is well done.

I feel like there's more I want to say, but can't quite figure out how to articulate. For now, for the sake of brevity, I'll leave it at this; yeah, it's really good!

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4 hours ago, indigoasis said:

@Newtype06

  Reveal hidden contents

Thanks!

Spoiler

I was in a rush to finish this story, so I used that villager as a plot device to move the plot forward. The very beginning of the conversation is a meme.

Edited by Newtype06
I'll probably write some Author Notes later to explain my line of reasoning.
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2 hours ago, indigoasis said:

Very short and sweet, but a nice perspective on Arvis' final moments. I didn't even realize it was about Arvis until the very end, actually. He's definitely one of the most driven characters in the series when it comes to getting what he wants, even at the cost of morals, so what you wrote is a perfect fit for the prompt.

I think taking advantage of the forum's text coloring was also a clever way to contrast the light and dark themes of this piece, too. Really cool!

Thanks!

Spoiler

When i started to write it, i wanted it to be about both Arvis and Edelgard, hence the "i didn't realize until the very end it was Arvis". 

I wanted to keep it that way, but someway in the mid i decided to focus more on Arvis instead. Maybe because i have been craving a FE4 remake or something xD

 

Edited by Shrimpolaris
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10 hours ago, indigoasis said:

I don't often critique because I think I'm horrible at it and others can give better feedback than I can, but I'll give it a shot since I didn't write anything this month.

@TheSilentChloey

  Reveal hidden contents

I liked the meta angle you went with this, although it was a slightly confusing read. I know that was kind of the point, but I wish I could have understood it better. From what I can gather, though, is it supposed to be based on a real conversation you had with a friend?

Regardless, you do a nice job of establishing what kind of relationship these characters have, even if we don't know much about the characters themselves.

@AnonymousSpeed

  Reveal hidden contents

This is just nostalgia bait, and I know it's just nostalgia bait since it's literally the "wake up, it's 2005!" meme in story format, but I live for this kind of stuff, so this gets a metaphorical gold star from me. Honestly, you had me at cereal straws.

I love the detail you put into this, and really, it's only something a 2000s kid could truly connect with. Thankfully, I'm a 2000s kid. It's a neat narrative about what someone would do if they had the opportunity to go back in time, and I think the choices the character (our character?) makes are perfectly reasonable. Simply put, I think it's very "human," and excellently encapsulates the time period, even if how it fits the prompt isn't immediately obvious.

@Shrimpolaris

  Reveal hidden contents

Very short and sweet, but a nice perspective on Arvis' final moments. I didn't even realize it was about Arvis until the very end, actually. He's definitely one of the most driven characters in the series when it comes to getting what he wants, even at the cost of morals, so what you wrote is a perfect fit for the prompt.

I think taking advantage of the forum's text coloring was also a clever way to contrast the light and dark themes of this piece, too. Really cool!

@Newtype06

  Reveal hidden contents

This was a great, well written and fleshed out story and fits the prompt incredibly well. Normally, I don't typically care much for stories in first person, but this was well done. I think it's important that it's in first person so the reader can really understand the position of the protagonist and the lengths an individual would go to for their faith, especially one of the church.

Even though those of the church can be viewed as forces for good, the church in this story really feels morally ambiguous later on. At first, the protagonist is saved when good comes to vanquish evil. Later on, he joins the side of good to continue the crusade against "evil." It turns out that some of the "evil" forces in this story aren't necessarily evil, nor do they entirely feel like it either, but rather they act on instincts, whether it be to bury the past or simply to survive.

I think the conversation between the protagonist and the villager feels a tad awkward, but everything else is well done.

I feel like there's more I want to say, but can't quite figure out how to articulate. For now, for the sake of brevity, I'll leave it at this; yeah, it's really good!

I will say this, it was a conversation that mostly began and ended in that one sitting.  Now some might get it, others not that is to be expected.

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Erm... One day definitely wasn't enough voting time, so I'll extend it to end at May 2nd's midnight (PST).

However, it does mean that the two people who have already voted will get their votes eaten by Serenes; unfortunately, you'll have to recast 'em.

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I shall not have time to update the thread 'til about 5:30-6 PST (7 and 1/2 hours from now), but given that it is a tie (though it can change), @Newtype06 and @AnonymousSpeed, please prepare a prompt  for the next writing cycle!

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We have our prompts-

4 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

Never mind, then!

It appears that the advice to not to drugs will also extend to not telling stories about them, as this month's prompt shall be...

7 hours ago, Newtype06 said:

Mecha

Anything Mecha goes

OP shall be updated soon!

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6 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

>drops in after two weeks of silence

>randomly tiebreaks at the last second

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

Thank you, chad. Can you give me feedback on my work?

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