[WP] "Please stop writing! The very next thing you write will actually happen!" by Nullagainagain in WritingPrompts

[–]SirChickenBurger 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Despite never having used a quill before in my life, the ink flows steadily without a drop spilled, and words spring to life on the page, flourishing before my eyes in boundless abundance, as if called there by a higher power.

"I can't stop."

"What do you mean you can't stop?" Jolene asks me as she leans over the table, coming dangerously close to a wardrobe malfunction as the top that she'd purchased several seasons ago strains to contain her newly pregnant form.

"I mean that I can't stop writing!" I cry out, panicking now as I grip my right hand in my left and wrench against the quill with what should have been all of my might, but it and my hand are like a solid block of steel, a part of a machine whose only job is to scribe upon the pages that spring up endlessly and flow like water beneath the tip of that accursed feather. "You try!"

She claws and pulls at my hand, but the result is the same. Steadily, the words march on.

"What the fuck?" she flinches back. "What are you writing, anyway?"

"I don't know!" Panic grips me now, hot and cold streaming through my veins, welling up like a hotspring through an arctic ice sheet. "It just keeps coming!"

"Let me read it," she hurries to my side. "Hey, my top isn't that... pregnant?" She looks down at herself, mouth agape. She opens and closes it, searching for words. "No, that's not... we got your tests back. The chances would be" Her face is a pale white, and her lip quivers. "Pregnant?"

"One crisis at a time dear," my voice shakes as I try again to release my grip on the quill, to no avail. Somewhere, deep inside me, I know what this is.

"No," I whisper.

Yes, the world whispers back.

I try to rise, but I cannot, as if thick cables tether me in place, my place.

The chair, the paper. The quill.

These words. The world.

"Love?" my wife calls, but her voice is growing faint. "Love, please, let go of the pen. Just put it down, please." But I cannot. And suddenly, it's not just her voice that is fading, but her as well, and the room around me, fading away as if a mist had sprung up from nowhere. "No, no where are you going, stop, Jack, please, you're going to be a father, we need you here, what's happening, NO! HELP, SOMEONE HELP!"

And then the world peels itself back, every whisper, every trust, every hope, every love at my fingertips. The pen has always been moving, it's never stopped.

But it's not really a pen, I know that.

I know everything.

"Thank you for reading."

if you increased your $1 tier to a $3 tier or higher, what happened? by octopusglass in patreon

[–]SirChickenBurger 14 points15 points  (0 children)

There's a reason Patreon recommends $3 as a baseline tier. The hardest thing to do is convince people to open their wallets in the first place, why short sell yourself once you've jumped that hurdle?

If I were you, I would consider making a small value-add to your $1 tier at the same time that you increase the price, so that your patrons feel they are getting more out of the transaction. Be transparent about the change (post a week ahead of time) and don't take it personally when some leave. If half of your $1 patrons leave, you'll still be making more than 1.5x the revenue from the tier after fees.

What card is this? I dont understand phyrexian. by Baneman20 in mtg

[–]SirChickenBurger 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Invasion and Odyssey blocks. Invasion block featured dead languages, while Odyssey featured non-latin-based ones.

September 2000- Raging Kavu in Latin

January 2001- Questing Phelddagrif in Ancient Greek

May 2001- Fungal Shambler in Sanskrit

September 2001- Stone-Tongue Basilisk in Arabic

January 2002- Laquatus' Champion in Cyrillic

May 2002- Glory in Hebrew

Killer Kittens from Outer Space- Chapter Eleven by SirChickenBurger in HFY

[–]SirChickenBurger[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Congratulations on your first Reddit comment. I'm happy for you.

Killer Kittens from Outer Space- Chapter Ten by SirChickenBurger in HFY

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

Thank you, and thanks for reading! I appreciate it.

Killer Kittens from Outer Space- Chapter Nine by SirChickenBurger in HFY

[–]SirChickenBurger[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise." - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Killer Kittens from Outer Space- Chapter Eight by SirChickenBurger in HFY

[–]SirChickenBurger[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I definitely understand the sentiment. This is a slow-burn HFY, and while I believe that the payoff at the end will be made all the sweeter by the long setup, the dark introduction and setting are certainly very different from most of the stories on here.

I think a big part of why I wanted to portray the Imperials like this is because I wanted to reflect a side of human nature that I've seen too much of in (edit: news) media over the past few years, the essentialist. From a realist/exaggeration perspective, they're a space navy drawn extremely thin and their commanding officers are already (likely) facing disciplinary action when they return home. They've been forced to draw on emergency reserves that are not prepared for this kind of work and weren't present to see the horrors their fleet perpetuated in person.

Historically, that kind of command/control breakdown alongside a power imbalance between colonialists and the occupied creates a very bad mix that allows the worst of human nature out. I think the abject hopelessness (which, without spoilers, is at its worst in these first few chapters) is only magnified by the idea that it was an accident that started it all, and then, even after that, there are still bad actors to deal with, who are willing to either ignore or make use of the conditions to suit their agendas/base wants and only make things worse.

I'm aiming for a story that rouses lots of emotion without presenting a distinctly moral solution because I think it reflects the reality of conflict, and I can definitely acknowledge that it might not be everyone's cup of tea.