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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2014 17:17:40 GMT -5
Happy Monday, everyone! Here's mine! It's kinda depressing, but I couldn't think of anything else for the prompt. “Can I take a break now?” Her voice is strained, her face flushed, stray wisps of hair pasted to her forehead by sweat. Her eyes are wide like an overworked horse’s, with a vacant look.
“No,” I reply authoritatively. “One more lap. If you sprint a couple more times, it’ll make up for all the jogging you’ve been doing. Come on, think of how good you’ll feel when you finish!”
“I don’t feel good right now.” A pained look passes over her face and her hand moves to her stomach.
I give her a groan of disdain, annoyed with her childish weakness. Why can’t she see that I’m just trying to help her toughen up to survive this brutal world? No one else will help her, certainly no one else has the ability to protect her. She came to me for solace and relief, and I’m giving it to her in the best way I know how: hardening her to resist the things that assault her. She will get no sympathy from me. “One more lap. Go.”
I know better than her. As someone who has beaten down my own tempests, subdued and dominated them, now I see things in terms of the weak and the strong, and the weak must become the strong or die. I am a survivor. She will survive, too, because I care about her. I will make her survive.
She gives me a look like she’s going to cry and I simply roll my eyes and gesture to the track. She likes to please me, and I can use that to work with her and mold her into the woman I have decided she should be. She doesn’t try to resist, like so many others who’ve thrown themselves away rather than listen to me.
She takes a breath – melodramatically acting like it pains her – and starts around the track again. Her head sways, her steps slog, her arms shake. I watch impassively. She can play things up as much as she likes, but it slides off of me like I am oil and her pain is water.
She circles back, slows, lowers herself to her knees in front of me and hangs her head. “Am I done yet?” she whispers.
“Get up,” I snarl, making sure to emphasize my disdain for her sensitivity. “What, do you think you’re the only one in the world who has problems? Traffic was horrible this morning and I spilled my coffee. Cry me a river, why don’t you.”
She shifts on her legs, quivers, and—falls. And doesn’t get up.
She doesn’t get up.
A few days later, I visit her in the hospital. “I’m disappointed in you,” are the first words out of my mouth as I poke my head through the door, expecting apologetic murmurs and downcast eyes.
What meets me instead is a bitter stare. “Get out,” she says venomously. Even though she can barely move, those burning eyes drown out the rest of the room.
I don’t flinch, though. I’m strong. She’s not. She proved that the other day. I fold my arms and lean casually against the doorframe. “I don’t see why you’re so upset about this. It was your fault. I told you to drink more water.”
Her nostrils flare. “Get. Out.”
My upper lip curls in disgust. Where is the woman who sought me for solace? Why does she not accept my more effective method of protection? How could she be so weak-willed? “You’re throwing your life away!” I protest. “Look at everything you could be accomplishing!” Why does she give up so easily?
She rolls out of the hospital bed, hobbles over to me, and slams the door in my face.
With a grimace, I jam my hands in my pockets and stalk down the hall. Some people just can’t be reasoned with.
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Post by Breakingchains on May 31, 2014 15:09:15 GMT -5
Hey, how would you guys feel about maybe reviving this thread, maybe starting back this Monday? I have enough free time to participate now, and I could kick off the first few prompts if need be.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2014 15:16:03 GMT -5
Sounds good, BC! I'd like to do more of this.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2014 15:32:54 GMT -5
Oh hey, it's this again!
Sure, I'm game. ^^
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Post by Sporty on May 31, 2014 21:50:03 GMT -5
I'm certainly game. I've missed this thread ^^
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Post by Breakingchains on Jun 2, 2014 12:16:40 GMT -5
Cool ^.^ Here we go!
Prompt for June 2-8: A character must improvise after a plan they've been relying on suddenly fails.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2014 10:40:37 GMT -5
It's Monday again, folks! Here's what I cooked up! I'd like to submit this to the NT, so feedback would be appreciated. Event Horizon
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Commander Hyren’s bare feet compacted the starch-fine layer of sooty dust covering the desolate planetoid, tagged in his helmet’s heads-up display only as Calixto Sigma-3204. The three thousand, two hundred and fourth planetoid in the Sigma cluster of the Calixto system.
At least, Calixto was what the Alien Aishas called it.
Most people in Sloth’s army called it the Gullet.
The Mutant Grundo looked to the atmosphere-less sky and thought it was a fitting nickname. For there, hanging above him in the blackness, was a pale blue supergiant star having its plasma leached away by its treacherous companion. Once an unassuming star itself, in its death throes it had imploded and left a puncture in the fabric of the universe. Now it was a black hole, greedily devouring any matter that got too close and perpetually snacking off of its unfortunate sibling.
Many a thrill-seeking fool in their shiny spaceship had played Peadackle with the Gullet and ended up compacted into a tidy little singularity. Or fried by radiation before they even got close, due to inadequate shielding from the energy thrown out by the black hole’s accretion disc.
Which was not a problem for Hyren or the platoon he’d taken with him. Sloth made sure the Grundo troopers’ shielding for void operations was always top-of-the-line, the most cutting-edge stuff his techs could develop.
Hence why Hyren was walking across a twenty-kilometre-radius planetoid in his bare feet. Because they weren’t really bare, there was an atoms-thick layer of atmospheric and radiation shielding protecting him from the cold vacuum and the relentless shower of X-rays spewing forth from the Gullet. And that was besides the gravity compensator and oxygen generator. Powered armour was a useful thing, indeed.
His eyes turned back to the stark horizon line. Somewhere around here lurked an Alien Aisha base. Clusters of green on the edges of his HUD showed that his platoon had spread out, looking for the same thing. The Alien Aishas thought they were safe hiding here.
Hyren would prove them wrong.
His thick green fingers drummed at the barrel of his blaster as he cradled it in both arms, watching for any sign of anything besides rocks and rifts and ancient craters. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he whispered, his antennae flat against his helmet. Just one bit of exposed wiring, the faintest glow of artificial lighting, or scorch marks from a recently departed ship was all he would need to call back his troops and wreak havoc. Those Aisha nuisances had been a thorn in Sloth’s side for far too long.
One of the green dots in his HUD flashed an alert and a yellow dart appeared on top of it. The Mutant Grundos he commanded could not think for themselves. Hyren himself was a special case among Mutant Grundos. The others were much like big, muscular machines that could be programmed to do simple tasks aside from their prime command of “smash and shoot”. For this mission, he’d given their brains the directive to drop a beacon if they found anything out of the ordinary for these planetoids’ known elemental composition.
It seemed like a pretty foolproof plan. He ordered them to converge on the signal, anticipating overwhelming the base with numbers. Already he could see pools of green shift to meet the flashing icon.
With a smirk, he turned heel and headed away to join them. The gravity tuners in his armour caused his bulk to throw up showers of dust with each footfall as he loped across the desolate planetscape. Once free from the influence of his shields, the dust grains gently fell back to their mother surface like they were sinking through oil.
On the opposite side of his HUD, another icon pinged. Hyren stopped, his heavy brow furrowing. The masses of green wavered. Before Hyren’s eyes, another yellow dart lit up, and then another, and another. His troops scattered like a disturbed nest of Vernax, their limited cognition trying to get them to all of the beacons at once.
“Blast it,” Hyren hissed under his breath. “What in the galaxy’s going on?!"
Utilizing the brain-armour connection his helmet provided, he mentally reached out and tapped one of the blinking icons, expanding it to reveal the designation number of the trooper and the soldier’s physical condition and shield integrity. Everything looked nominal—it didn’t seem like there had been an attack, and at any rate the platoon would be moving differently if there was. Combat overrode most directives, and if any one of them was attacked, the others would swarm.
Hyren stowed his blaster on the magnetic clamps on his back and leaped onto a nearby rock formation, scaling it and swinging his leg over the edge. On top, he clenched his fists as he surveyed the curvature of the planetoid. His HUD wasn’t lying—he could see Mutant Grundos, wearing armour similar to his own, staggering around aimlessly, colliding and stumbling as they tried to reach a dozen different goals.
He tried to send out a communication calling them back, but they just jerked in response and then continued to tumble around, flailing as they smashed into each other. Hyren ground his teeth.
Sabotage? Did the Alien Aishas know they were there? The scouts hadn’t said anything about jammers, and at any rate those were ever only used for larger-scale things like ships’ sensor arrays. Not local communications. Those usually weren’t judged worth the trouble of disrupting.
Whatever was going on, Hyren had to think of something fast. This much chaos on the surface was sure to alert the Aishas, and his troops would needlessly injure themselves falling over each other like that.
But it was hard to come up with a solution when he couldn’t even pinpoint the problem. And to make matters worse, that blasted black hole had just gorged itself on a particularly large mass of matter and was throwing out a fresh wave of radiation that made his shields crackle and caused a veil of static fuzz on his HUD—
Of course.
The Gullet’s radiation was scrambling communications.
“Blast it, who thinks it’s a good idea to do anything within a light-year of a black hole?!” Hyren shouted to the stars. “Gah…” He kicked a stray chunk of rock off the edge of the cliff.
Well, now he knew the problem. Now for the solution. He’d never received specific training in the engineering behind communications, but he was aware that in the event of interference, the best thing to do was try to get a signal boost.
But how to do that.
What did he have on hand? He searched his utility belt and found nothing relevant to the situation, unless he knew how to construct an antenna out of hydration capsules and nanofibre grappling cord. Which he didn’t. He would have to talk to someone about this deficiency when they got back to base.
He needed something metal and a source of electricity.
Thankfully, he had both in the same item. He reached over his shoulder and grabbed his blaster. The digital display showed it still had plenty of power.
“Now I’m getting somewhere,” Hyren muttered. He knelt on the dusty cliff and placed the weapon in front of him, scrounging from his memory everything he had ever learned about electronics. “Power, check. Transmitter…”
He reached up to his shoulder and unlatched one of the pauldrons from his cuirass. Flipping open a maintenance panel in the blaster, he lodged the curved rim of the upturned shoulder plate into the cavity so it sat firm, metal against metal. It made the perfect makeshift receiving dish, the right shape and everything.
Now came the fun part. Hyren reached up to his back again and unsheathed his ceramic sword. Holding it up with a bit of a maniacal grin, he drove the tip into the display panel of the blaster, wrenching the electronics inside as the non-conducting blade shielded him from the overload. On his HUD, the entire setup glowed with electrical energy.
And now he had to act fast before the entire thing died on him. Leaning close to the antenna, Hyren sent out a broadcast to his platoon. Cease. Ignore beacons. Converge on me. With this much of a power boost for a short-range broadcast, the Gullet’s radiation shouldn’t have enough time to interfere significantly.
Then he sat back on his heels and waited.
His massive shoulders sagged with relief when the troopers’ movements slowed and stopped. The faulty beacons still flared, but he could ignore them, and now his platoon did, too, as they gathered around the outcropping.
Crisis averted. Hyren gave himself a mental pat on the back as he used his blade to flip the pauldron away from the blaster and buckled it back on. He wasn’t losing any of his armour if he could help it. The blaster, on the other hand, was totally fried, but it was standard-issue and easily replaceable.
He stood back up and made his way down the cliff, to a waiting throng of mindless grunts. Their eternally empty stares were something he tried not to focus on too much. In his estimation, their non-mutated selves hadn’t had much in the way of brains to begin with.
The commander surveyed his HUD. He had no doubt that most of the beacons were false leads caused by data corruption from the radiation. But one of them could be legit. And now at least he had something to go on rather than a blind search.
With a sigh, he held his blade in front of him and gave his troops the directive to follow. Maybe when he found the Alien Aisha base he’d tie their earstalks in knots for being so troublesome.
Just a day in the life.
My electronics-savvy friend helped me out with Hyren's kitbash. We had a really fun discussion trying to figure out how to get him out of the corner I'd painted him into. |
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Post by Breakingchains on Jun 9, 2014 13:13:03 GMT -5
Here's mine! When I find a cliche that is so overused it's grating, I like to mess around with it and try to make it interesting. In this case, it'd be the "chosen one" shtick. Disturbing content warning for implied serious injury to a child, though it's offscreen.
Tren strode into the castle, down the hall past silent guards, eager to meet personally with the stroke of luck that had just fallen into his hands. There had been little argument when the boy was discovered--he had the parentage, the birthmark and the prodigious magical skill. All in all, you'd have to have been stupid not to realize he was the chosen one.
Of course, the... processing required a long line of old men with beards to look at the evidence, then go "Mmmyep, chosen one," then get everything on paper just so. Tiresome, but it lent an air of authenticity to things that kept the subjects satisfied, and having satisfied subjects involved a great deal fewer mysterious fires than having unsatisfied ones, and that suited Tren just fine. The fact that they'd found him here in Kalata was a godsend; the tiny nation had been struggling for years under a half-demented king, bullied and threatened, occupied and reoccupied by larger neighboring countries to suit themselves. Tren had been away for the past two months on a politically-important visit; his father's mysterious death in his absence (which was about as mysterious as the aforementioned mysterious fires, not that Tren was going to say that out loud) left his coronation right around the corner, only weeks after they'd found the boy. If the prophecy was true then they were now invincible, set to become a major world power.
And even if it wasn't true, everyone believed it was, which was almost as good. In any case, they were no longer saddled by a king who couldn't remember to put on a shirt in the morning.
The boy had been put in training right away. He was downstairs now, working with the captain of the guard, hardening up for the more advanced lessons. Tren had not yet met him, but he'd been told a few details; he was bookish and willow-thin and generally unprepared to even pick up a broadsword, much less use it to defend the kingdom. In short, he needed to improve. Fast.
The word was getting out. It was crossing borders and language barriers like nothing, and Kalata was already coming into the spotlight. People across the continent would be talking--about the boy, about the nation, about him. They would be vying for alliances, trying to get into Kalata's good graces or else plotting against it, the world in fits over a tiny little patch of half-free land in the middle of nowhere. It was the beginning of a dangerous game--and Tren was prepared to play for keeps.
Still, he wasn't worried, not yet. Tren rounded a corner, heading for the stairs. He was wary, yes, but that wasn't the same as worrying, which involved a lot more hand-wringing and useless conjecture. The very nature of the prophecy guaranteed that the plotting was going to be a lot more cautious than the sucking up, and that meant time--time to forge enough alliances and gain enough independence to ensure that firing so much as a slingshot at Kalata was a risky proposition.
Tren practically flew down the stairs. This was going to be interesting.
Then he opened the door, entered the room and instantly felt a weight in the air. The men who had been speaking in hushed tones a moment ago stared at him briefly before bowing and engaging in awkward protocol, which Tren barely noticed. There was no sign of some little bookish boy, and something in the captain's face was drawn tight as he went through the spiel of greetings and titles. As soon as he found a breath of air, Tren broke off the pleasantries:
"Enough. Where is Koreo?"
There was much jostling and casting of loaded glances.
"If you please, your highness, Koreo is in the infirmary. He received an injury during his training."
Tren felt a flash of alarm, then tried to contain his disgust as the news sank in.
"When did this happen?"
"Five days ago. We've been trying to send word, but--"
"Captain," he said slowly, "how bad is it?"
"He got a little enthusiastic," the captain blurted out, "He pulled a mace off the wall behind my back. It was too heavy for him, and it fell--"
"How bad is it!?"
"They're, ah, they're saying he can't remember anything. When you walk into the room, he forgets you were there in five minutes." The captain fidgeted for a second. "It might be permanent," he added.
Tren fell silent, staring. He rubbed his face a minute, heaving a long sigh through his hand. Plotting. There were nations plotting. He waved a hand to the door, speaking in a rush of breath:
"All of you get out. Except you, Captain, you stay right where you are."
The room was empty in a matter of seconds. Tren stared the captain down, rubbing his face again, feeling his mind trying to go twenty directions at once. When he finally spoke, the man's face twitched.
"Captain. I'm certain you understand this was entirely your fault." Panic was spreading over the man's face, but he was silent, as if he wanted to protest but was barely smart enough not to... barely. Tren continued, controlling his tone: "And I'm certain you're standing there thinking about how the entire world is about to find out that Kalata had the chosen one and then you let him maim himself on your watch. Trust me, you're not the only one who wants to avoid that scenario."
The captain quietly waited, eyebrows knitted. Tren was speaking in a whisper now:
"Send Koreo home to his mother with a caretaker. Tell her that for now she's retiring to the islands with my sincerest condolences and a houseboat full of silver. Then find me a skinny ten-year-old and paint a birthmark on him." Tren strained to smile. "...And then if you don't think you can keep your mouth shut, let me know so I can have your tongue cut out."
A minute later, the Captain was gone from the room. Tren heaved a huge sigh, covering his eyes in disbelief.
Well, this complicated matters.
Here in a few hours or so I can do the next prompt if no one else calls it. :3 |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2014 14:17:20 GMT -5
Breakingchains - Haha, nice twist on the old cliche! Poor derpy chosen one. And poor Tren. I don't have any prompt ideas, so if no one else does, feel free to do it again.
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Post by Breakingchains on Jun 9, 2014 19:38:59 GMT -5
All righty!
Prompt for June 9-15: Virus.
Also, sorry I didn't spot your request for feedback. I'm in a rush today but I'll read it over and make some comments, probably tomorrow ^^
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Post by Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff) on Jun 9, 2014 19:42:12 GMT -5
All righty! Prompt for June 9-15: Virus.Also, sorry I didn't spot your request for feedback. I'm in a rush today but I'll read it over and make some comments, probably tomorrow ^^ SO. TEMPTING.... |
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Post by Breakingchains on Jun 14, 2014 11:57:53 GMT -5
@surfersquid: ROFL. I completely forgot, because that's how I roll and... yeah, feel free to throw something pointy at me, okay?  Feedbackness! - First off, cool set-up! The whole scene of conducting a military operation underneath a black hole is really vivid and intriguing. I don't think I've seen this before.
- I can't exactly pinpoint why, but Hyren's internal world seems a little lackluster compared to WFF. In WFF he had gallows humor and wisecracks going in his head pretty much constantly--he just doesn't seem to have as much snark and energy here.
- I have no idea how accurate the technobabble is, but it was definitely fun. It might be a little too thick in places (I.E., there were a couple sentences I had to stop and reread just to make sure I was getting the gist) but judge that for yourself.
- I liked the plot point of the jammer. The alien aishas are never onscreen, there's no fighting, but the one action of jamming the Grundos' gear until they're running in circles and bumping into each other portrays them and what they're about in a pretty crystal-clear fashion. That's just cool. That's all. Sorry for my derp. xD |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2014 12:24:23 GMT -5
@surfersquid: ROFL. I completely forgot, because that's how I roll and... yeah, feel free to throw something pointy at me, okay? Feedbackness! - First off, cool set-up! The whole scene of conducting a military operation underneath a black hole is really vivid and intriguing. I don't think I've seen this before.
- I can't exactly pinpoint why, but Hyren's internal world seems a little lackluster compared to WFF. In WFF he had gallows humor and wisecracks going in his head pretty much constantly--he just doesn't seem to have as much snark and energy here.
- I have no idea how accurate the technobabble is, but it was definitely fun. It might be a little too thick in places (I.E., there were a couple sentences I had to stop and reread just to make sure I was getting the gist) but judge that for yourself.
- I liked the plot point of the jammer. The alien aishas are never onscreen, there's no fighting, but the one action of jamming the Grundos' gear until they're running in circles and bumping into each other portrays them and what they're about in a pretty crystal-clear fashion. That's just cool. That's all. Sorry for my derp. xD Haha, don't worry about it. Seems like it's been a busy week for us all. On my part I feel bad that I still haven't come up with anything for your prompt, but I've been more focused on other projects (like the WFF sequel). I really appreciate your feedback! Yeah, I see what you mean about Hyren. I'll go back and try to jazz it up a little. I guess I felt like most of the things he'd be thinking about would be things he also thinks about at points in WFF and I didn't want to get redundant. But I can see if he has anything more to say. And I'll look over the technobabble again; I've probably been reading too much about that kind of stuff lately and my geeking out oozed into (and partly inspired) the story. |
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Post by Breakingchains on Jun 16, 2014 10:23:29 GMT -5
It's-a Monday! Mine's short today. Dear diary. Found a new condition that may explain my symptoms, still a controversial diagnosis, first spotted in Uruguay. Seems like a potential answer but still unsure. Researching now.
Dear diary. Symptoms vary. Cold-like symptoms are common, but sometimes absent. Rash seems common. Joint problems. Vomiting. Progression into late stages includes paranoia and finally complete mental breakdown. Mimics a wide range of conditions and is difficult to detect with laboratory tests. Also I may just have the flu. Will check. Where the hell's a cotton swab?
Dear diary. Flu negative. Oh crap.
Dear diary. I think I caught... it. Not sure how. Not sure when. Rash is starting to spread. Feeling queasy as well. Always been serious about sanitation. Ricky's disgusting and he's been doing this thirty years, why doesn't he have it. That would at least make sense.
Dear diary. Quarantined myself. Pretty sure I'm going to die. Oh God oh god oh god oh god
Dear diary. Mixup with the flu test. Also Ricky says rash is just poison Ivy.
Never mind. I don't know. xD Anyone else can feel free to jump in ^^ If you want to do a prompt, call it! |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2014 12:39:07 GMT -5
Argh, I just didn't have the time or energy this week, I'm sorry. It's been a hectic one and I never really got any concrete ideas for the prompt. Maybe this week will be better. Haha, yours was great, Breakingchains! It was actually genuinely scary up until the twist ending, or maybe I'm just paranoid about getting sick. Oh, hypochondria. Here, I'll give a prompt for this week: On the go |
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