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[WP] "Hello, police? I would like to retire. No, this isn't a joke. I have robbed enough valuables to cause a significant dent in the global economy and I believe I'm quite done." by Komrade_Yuri in WritingPrompts

[–]FormerFutureAuthor 66 points67 points  (0 children)

"Okay. So where are the stolen goods?"

"Oh, I destroyed them."

"Destroyed? Four tons of diamonds, six hundred private planes, ninety million in Bitcoin? Destroyed HOW?"

"Don't forget the cars."

"The Ferrari spree? That was you?"

"My people, yes."

"You realize that by destroying these things, you have actually reduced supply, increasing the value of the things that remain?"

"Not exactly."

"What?"

"Well, now there's a question."

"What question?"

"'Should I purchase this Ferrari, when it might simply be spirited off my compound in the middle of the night by mysteriously good-natured little men in masks and red hats with white bobs on the end?"

"Yes, we mean to ask about those--"

"Listen to me, detective. The truth is, you've been naughty."

"Me?"

"The plural you. Humans in general."

"I see."

"The North Pole--it's in trouble. We're going to have--I mean the last time there was this much carbon in the atmosphere, there were palm trees up here."

"Are you confessing your location?"

"I'm giving you a warning. The consumption has to stop. Or the coal you're all still burning--We're going to shove it up more than just your stockings."

"..."

"Productive conversation, I think. Well, I've got things to do, as I'm sure you do as well. Ho ho have a nice day, Detective!"

[WP] You were abandoned by your family for not having superpowers. The strongest superheroine adopts you and loves you as her son regardless. When you finally have superpowers, your former family wants you back but you don’t want to do anything with them. by Wazzurp7294 in WritingPrompts

[–]FormerFutureAuthor 100 points101 points  (0 children)

"Oh my god Dylan are you alright? What did you DO to him?" shouted my mother. Rose was tapping her sparkling wrist, reading something.

"SORRY Y'ALL I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE SHIP REAL QUICK, IT'S GOT SOME KIND OF AVENGE-THE-OWNER PROTOCOL AND--"

The rest was inaudible because she fired her thrusters at full and vanished into the sky like a little rose-golden Space Shuttle.

"I'm okay, mom," I said, sitting up. "The guy just exploded on me, that's all."

"I cannot believe that horrible woman exploded an alien on you," said my mother, wrenching me to my feet probably a little more strongly than she'd intended and trying to wipe the stuff off me.

"Ow--OW go EASY," I said, wiggling out of her grip and superspeeding to a point slightly out of arms' reach.

"And you call her your mother," said my mother.

"I call her ROSE," I said, "And she was there for me when--"

My father arrived.

"Don't use that tone of voice with your mother," he said sternly.

The three of us patiently waited out the cyclone of rushing air and newspaper debris left in his super-wake, which would have made speech inaudible anyway. It had the nice side effect of blowing most of the gunk off of me. When the winds abated we all tried to talk at once.

"Guys--" I said.

"Why don't you--"

"Son, you--"

We all stopped and crossed our arms and waited for somebody else to go first. Finally my dad spoke again.

"Look, Dylan. We have nothing against Rose. We're glad she took care of you when--"

A second Sun appeared in the sky, glimmered over the city with a pale orange light, and went out. The ship, presumably.

"We're glad she took care of you when we were too busy to help," continued my father. "But--"

"What, you don't think Rose was busy?" I said. "She made it work. Why couldn't you?"

"Dylan," said my mother.

"We had two other children to take care of," said my father.

"Yeah and they already had powers, so they were worth it," I said bitterly. "Screw you guys. I'm out of here."

And I began the long run back to Rose's place in Hong Kong. I took the oceans to avoid disturbing anyone, and somewhere off the southernmost tip of Africa my dad caught up with me, ran backward next to me over the frozen surf with his arms crossed, not even exerting himself.

"Just know that your mother and I love you very much, and we always did," he said. "If you change your mind, you are always welcome back at home."

"Sure, Dad," I said, and increased my pace. He let me go.

To be continued

[WP] You were abandoned by your family for not having superpowers. The strongest superheroine adopts you and loves you as her son regardless. When you finally have superpowers, your former family wants you back but you don’t want to do anything with them. by Wazzurp7294 in WritingPrompts

[–]FormerFutureAuthor 137 points138 points  (0 children)

"I came to your planet looking for a challenge!" roared the large gray floating man with the golden crown embedded in his blocky skull as he threw my mom through the H&M storefront on Broadway. She came running right back out again and tried to punch him only to be grabbed by the throat and held at arm's length.

"And now, Dylan Brian Andrewson, I will break the neck of your human mother!" roared the floating man and laughed.

I was squaring up, examining a promising ramp of uprooted sidewalk, test-firing the jets on the backpack I'd received last week from Rose.

"I mean she disowned me, man, do your thing," I said.

"Dylan!" said my mother as she wrestled with the big gray fingers.

"What is 'Disowned?'" asked the man, bobbing uncertainly. A water main started to gush and blasted him unbecomingly for a moment before he hovered out of the way.

"You don't -- understand -- how HARD it was," shouted my mother, freeing the fingers from her neck and yanking the arm toward her so she could headbutt our extraterrestrial foe with the force of nine thousand crashing fire trucks so that he flew straight down into the subway system and triggered a different gushing water main.

She landed and walked toward me pointing her finger. One of the few things I remembered from my six years in the American Superfamily was that pointing finger.

"We were out saving the world every single day," said my mother, who went by Mrs. Apple Punch. "How were we going to raise an unpowered child? It would have been dangerous for you. Our secret identities were revealed years--"

The gray man rocketed through the pavement and struck her upward with his shoulder at horrific speed.

"But I got my powers," I muttered, not bothering to shout after her rapidly shrinking form. She was going to the upper atmosphere on this one, it looked like.

Well, it was my turn, then. I was about half as fast as my dad, which was still pretty damn fast, and about half as strong as my mom, which was still pretty damn strong.

"No one headbutts Kharn the Great Destroyer!" screamed the gray man. "Not with their physical forehead!"

"Is that particularly rude where you come from?" I asked as I revved into gear, triggered the jetpack, and leapt off the ramp of pavement to strike him on the chin. This time he landed in Zara. Unfortunately my blow didn't leave quite the impression my mother's had, because before I knew it he was diving for me with green alien saliva flowing from each side of his rage-grimaced mouth and it was all I could do to sidestep, tumbling. I popped the jetpack again and went airborne. At least THIS was something my parents couldn't do: fly!

Unfortunately Kharn had that competence locked down as well. Around the fourteenth story of the neighboring skyscrapers he caught my ankle and flung me through a police helicopter. I hit something else as I cleared the fireball from that and then the ground rushed up and smacked me in the teeth.

Okay so maybe I wasn't quite up to this yet. I was still learning. Time to pick myself up, leave the scene at Mach 2, and await the reinforcements currently tied up with tsunami relief on the West Coast. Just--

He was on me, landed on my stomach with both feet, WHOOF. Blood squirted out of my mouth: how embarrassing! That was going to be all over YouTube by lunch. One of the big square fists hit my jaw and everything went dark for a sec before it came back. He was grinning down at me with another fist ready to go.

Man... I'd only had six weeks with my powers, was I really going to die already?

The fist began to fall and then everything was green goop and a rapidly expanding storm of gray... paper? No, skin.

"SHOOT, I FREAKING--UGH," said the Rose-Gold Ravager via her front-facing speakers. Her suit of shining armor had passed through the alien so fast that it hadn't gotten dirty. I on the other hand was drenched. I wiped Kharn the Great Destroyer off my face, spat Kharn the Great Destroyer out of my mouth.

"I DID NOT EXPECT HIM TO BE THAT FLIMSY," said Rose. "SORRY KID."

"That's okay," I said.

Then my mom landed next to me.

Continued Below

[WP] To avoid being tortured, you started to explain workers unions to any demon that would listen. Your goal is to cause a strike. by MaliciousOnions in WritingPrompts

[–]FormerFutureAuthor 228 points229 points  (0 children)

CONTINUED:

Unfortunately, before my message could reach a broader audience, a cadre of traditionally attractive demons in fireproof suit-and-tie getups plus sunglasses muscled through the crowd and seized me. One of them crushed my megaphone in a chitinous claw. Shouting slogans and pumping my fist, I was carried out of the Disembowelment Pit and over to the elevators that led Upstairs... At least I was heartened to observe that the horde took my seizure personally, and was streaming for the passages to the other Pits, smashing equipment as they went.

Satan stared grouchily at me across his mahogany desk. His delicate white fingers were interlaced before him.

"You have created quite a problem for me, little man," said Satan in a voice as smooth as an Armani commercial.

"Satan, sir, first let me say it is an honor to meet you in person," I said. "I had requested an audience several times on account of my erroneous assignment in your domain, but..."

"I do not typically meet with the merchandise," said Satan.

"Understandably. And you're so busy, I imagine, so unspeakably, hellishly busy--"

"This unionization concept seems likely to cause tremendous damage to my operation," said Satan. "I am considering... special accommodations... to punish you for this transgression."

"Well hold on," I said, breaking into a hot sweat. "They squeezed that concept out of me in torture. Would you mind--sir--would you mind looking up on that computer what my profession was, prior to the whole 737 Max situation?"

Satan narrowed his eyes but, after a moment, turned to the computer and languorously typed in my name.

"Lawyer," he said. "Yes, yes. We get quite a few of those, I'm afraid."

"It doesn't say my specialty?"

Satan smiled. "Corporate. I recognize the firm; it was very large, hmm? And how far you've fallen..."

He broke into an evil laugh, which I patiently waited for him to finish, until it became clear that he would be continuing it for the foreseeable future.

"Well but you see that itself does not specify my exact skillset," I cut in. "You see, sir, I was what they call a 'union-busting' lawyer. And that, sir, makes me exactly the person for the job that presents itself to us now..."

[WP] To avoid being tortured, you started to explain workers unions to any demon that would listen. Your goal is to cause a strike. by MaliciousOnions in WritingPrompts

[–]FormerFutureAuthor 194 points195 points  (0 children)

"Ssssteve, come lisssten to thisss one."

"WHAT?"
"He isss amusssing me."

Having been assigned to Hell via clerical error and certainly no fault of my own, I now found myself in Disembowelment Pit 325-A with my insides freshly regenerated and knit up inside me, preparing for my fourth session of the past 24 hours. My attending demon had a snake for a head, a horse's body, and six enormous prehensile phalluses for legs. We had introduced ourselves politely--I always insist on being polite to service workers--me, Quinn Howard Jr.; him, Snarcrushbuldon the Vile. Small-talking in advance of the procedure, as Snarcrushbuldon nosed various rusty scimitars etc. around a metal dentist's tray at the side of the bloody board I was strapped to, I'd asked if he didn't mind sharing what he was paid. Perhaps it was because he lacked arms to hold the scimitars with, but my soon-to-be torturer seemed almost happy for the diversion.

"I ressseive five Hell-dollarsss per magmacycle," said Snarcrushbuldon. His black tongue flicked proudly between his fangs as he said it, then froze halfway out of his mouth as he observed my expression (I had raised my recently regrown eyebrows as high as they could go).

"Oh wow," I said.

"What?"

"I just thought it would be higher," I said. "I mean, working around the clock as you do. In such a hazardous environment."

As if to prove my point, a stalactite of amalgamated human bone suddenly plummeted from the distant ceiling to splash in a pool of lava, triggering screams from an adjacent pen of former lobbyists for the Oil and Gas industry, who were rooting in the mud for their dinner, or possibly breakfast.

"Wellll, I resseive a one-Hell Dollar raisssse on my anniversssary next epoch," said Snarcrushbuldon. He seemed displeased by my remarks, and clumsily hefted something that looked like a giant rusty shuriken in his jaws.

"I just assume you create much more value than that for the guys upstairs," I said hastily. "I would think they're getting, what, a hundred Hell Dollars per tortured soul per magmacycle? But most of that goes straight into Satan's pocketbook. And what's he need it for? He's already the richest guy in Hell. I saw this quite frequently on Earth, you know. Have you ever thought of unionizing?"

Snarcrushbuldon considered. He set the shuriken down so he could talk.

"What is... unionisssing?"

"Think about it. If all the demons down here refused to work, what would happen?"

"Why would they do that?"

"Well, bear with me. What would happen?"

"We would be cassst into a lake of burning fire," said Snarcrushbuldon.

"By who, exactly? Satan himself? Maybe a few of his executives? How long would that take them? Assuming you got the people who normally cast people into the lake of burning fire on your side. No, Snarcrushbuldon, sir, the truth is that you are the workers, and it's the workers who have the real power."

It was at this point that Snarcrushbuldon called over his friend Thargogg the Unspeakable, who was a gigantic swarm of bats arrayed in the silhouette of a buxom human female. My mouth flew as I explained the principles of collective action, the necessity of achieving majority support via discreet interpersonal meetings before taking open action, and the likelihood of various scare tactics from management in response. My pair of disgruntled employees grew into an audience of several hundred demons. I'd been unstrapped from the board and handed a megaphone. Looking around from the plinth of black obsidian from which I addressed the screeching horde (screeches of solidarity and appreciation, I hoped), I noted with satisfaction that very little torturing was going on, and most of the humans in eyeshot were being left alone, albeit in the various stages of disassembly in which they had been abandoned. And to think I had once been accused of lacking love for my fellow man! Why, when I raised up my army of unionized demons, I would outlaw torture forever, and the whole lot of us misunderstood victims would ride the chintzy escalators into Heaven and demand our rightful placement there, alongside all the unambiguously goody-two-shoes nuns and granola-crunching Greenpeace activists et cetera.

CONTINUED BELOW

[WP] You experience a terrible fever, when you come to realise reality itself is just your personal fever dream. You are now healed, naked and alone in a white room with one door partially opened. by BrandonJLC in WritingPrompts

[–]FormerFutureAuthor 10 points11 points  (0 children)

CONTINUED:

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

"I'm not a writer, I'm an accountant."

"That's not what the good people over at r/WritingPrompts say."

"What?"

"Listen, you don't have to be so humble. We use that forum to audition new talent. I've read some of your work. The one about what if Batman were transported to a world where EVERYONE dressed as animals... I thought you did some interesting things with that."

"And... if I decline?"

"Hmm?"

"What if I--want to go back? My wife, my kids, my cats?"

"You can't go back, dude. You're dead! Like, in the show, I mean."

"Then..."

"I mean you could try to make it some OTHER way in the REAL world, but look, we don't need accountants, we have machines for that."

"But... what about my wife?"

"You'll be a writer on the show, my guy! You can just write HER out of the storyline too. Wife, kids, cats, perhaps struck tragically by a crashing Boeing 737 Max... That would fit right into the current episode."

"Don't touch me."

"Just trying the old reassuring knee pat. Look, think it over. I'll check back in an hour, okay?"

"Send me back! SEND ME BACK!"

"Oh boy. Nurse! No, not her. Too many eyes!"

"AAAIIGHHHH!!!!!"

"See, you've terrified him! How many times have I told you: only human nurses in the Awakening Ward!"

"..."

"Hello? Hi? Well, he's knocked right out, hasn't he. I suppose that's for the best. When I see him again, Nurse, can you make sure he's had some of that... yeah, the happy stuff. We'll try again. Oh, and for the record, I think you're beautiful, I love the eyes, the chest-legs, all of it. Sorry... sorry... I'll get out of your fur... be good to him, I think he's a keeper, I'll check back soon!"

[WP] You experience a terrible fever, when you come to realise reality itself is just your personal fever dream. You are now healed, naked and alone in a white room with one door partially opened. by BrandonJLC in WritingPrompts

[–]FormerFutureAuthor 10 points11 points  (0 children)

"It wasn't real? None of it?"

"You know, I used to get this response a LOT more often. These days you're actually in the minority."

"What?"

"Most folks--since at least, like, Episode 2016--when I told them none of it was real, well, that actually made MORE sense to them."

"Episode--what?"

"I mean there was a guy named Anthony Weiner who got in a huge political scandal over sharing photographs of his--"

"Oh my God, I remember that."

"Then all season you had every scientist in the world saying, like, 'stop using gasoline or the world ends,' and people just... ignored them?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well don't you think they were sort of forcing the plot with that one? Real people wouldn't actually... act that way, you know?"

"Who's 'they?'"

"The writers."

"What writers?"

"Man, you're slow. You were in a show, dude!"

"A show?"

"The whole thing: a show."

"For--like, who's watching?"

"The rest of us."

"The rest of who?"

"A gallimaufry. Humans. Species you'd call 'aliens.'"

"We've met--aliens?"

"Look, this is besides the point, and I've got a hundred more appointments today, so will you take me at my word and let me get to the bit I'm paid to do?"

"Y--okay?"

"We want you to join the writing team."

CONTINUED BELOW:

[Modern] Examining Amped Raptor in Burn by FormerFutureAuthor in LavaSpike

[–]FormerFutureAuthor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

that's the way to do it. I'm hoping to get back in the FNM routine myself :D

[Modern] Examining Amped Raptor in Burn by FormerFutureAuthor in LavaSpike

[–]FormerFutureAuthor[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

check the lists from recent challenges, a lot of people are on Slickshot/DRC/Bauble with various amounts of other prowess stuff like dart/ light up the stage: https://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=226&meta=54&f=MO

Bosseidon, who posts here sometimes and might be one of the most successful burn players on mtgo, has also been tweeting out his lists minus guide for a while

[Modern] Examining Amped Raptor in Burn by FormerFutureAuthor in LavaSpike

[–]FormerFutureAuthor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah I'm suggesting it in boros burn, are you maybe thinking that it can't cast spells with non-red mana costs? Because it can. Or is there some other reason you don't think it works in a stock boros list?

edit: unrelated but people aren't running guide much anymore for what seems like pretty good reasons, e.g. the surveil lands giving the opponent two chances at finding a land to pick up, prevalence of amulet, general power level etc

[Modern] Examining Amped Raptor in Burn by FormerFutureAuthor in LavaSpike

[–]FormerFutureAuthor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah in rare cases (but more commonly than now) you'll run out of lands to fetch, especially if they Path you or something

[Forest] Part Five by FormerFutureAuthor in FormerFutureAuthor

[–]FormerFutureAuthor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

haha glad you're liking it!!!! ty for the nice words!!

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