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Writing prompt repository
I rarely get ideas for fun writing prompts, but I love reading them and the stories they spark. Since Tildes doesn't have a community for just prompts, I'd like to see if a thread would be a replacement!
Rules:
Every new prompt is to be a top level comment and replies are to be child comments underneath the correct prompt. Mistakes happen, but my little heart can only stand so much messiness!
Regardless of distance (e.g., intergalactic) the "twin sense" is real. If you touch one twin the other twin will feel it instantaneously.
Bollen reached down to pick up another rock, and took his aim once more. Like a baseball pitch he lifted his elbows and jumped, shifting his weight as he landed and launched the stone ahead. Aiming wasn't really the goal here, it just had to travel far enough to reach the other side of the wall.
"What are you still doing here?"
The voice was heard, but there wasn't anyone to repond do.
"There's another one on its way from the other side of the wall," my brother said.
"What, again? How can you be so sure?"--CLANK.
"Go gell our captain," he said to his companion, "I sense more are on their way."
"Yes sir, right away."
"Well brother, looks like you have earned their trust, and even risen in their ranks." I said to the wind.
After a few minutes, once the footsteps of the other fellow had long faded, he replied, "You won't believe the women here brother. Now that you've escaped from that wicked cage we can speak freely. We can at last take vengance on the traitors that locked you away and cut us off from each other!"
At first it was true, when they put me in that room I was completely cut off from my brother. But then they taught me what this power really was. We can communicate like this because the sound waves vibrate the small hairs in our ears, and that is what allows us to hear what the other is hearing. But what I didn't know was just how easy it was to turn it off, to block the signals from ever reaching my brother. I've spent the past three months listening to him, getting quite comfortable with his newfound rank, and these women be speaks of. He plans to turn me in, and in return he was promised a lifetime of luxury and nobility. That stupid moron. How many times do I need to show him that they would never accept a mutant like us in their ranks.
Oh well, it can't be helped. He is my brother, as stupid as he is.
"Take vengance? How are we going to do that?"
"You need to escape first, come join us on this side of the wall. I'll be waiting just on the other side, and I'll introduce you to the leaders here. They promised to help us with getting back at those criminals who kidnapped you."
"I see. Then I will see you soon brother. It am not too far, as the stones have finally reached across. I should be at the gates any moment now."
The light hitting my brother's eyes reaches mine just the same. The men have carefully gathered, so as to not make any sound. I can see what he sees. Something that I'd have considered impossible untill the people here guided me with realizing the true potential of this power.
I placed my hand on the giant door, gently, closing off all my senses to concentrate. I knocked.
The door opened, and there stood my brother in shock. While his men were pressed up against the wall, I too had an army standing behind me. Except my army didn't need any weapons. I closed my eyes once more and found myself looking at my brother, this time with my army behind him. I shut the door and we were gone. In an instant we were thousands of miles away, and my brother was about to get a talking to the likes of which no man has ever seen.
"Before we knew it, cities were felled in a matter of days, intercontinental infrastructure collapsed. Life as we knew it ceased to exist, and all it took...was just that damned sentient toaster!"
One of my biggest struggles is injecting those elements of humor into an otherwise tense or dramatic piece. I've found it's a very different skill to be funny in person than to translate that into text and still getting a laugh.
PROMPT: Share a funny story from your life, someone else's, or original fiction, with the goal of getting a laugh.
(if specificity helps, the first I'm working on is about something a kindergartner said after story time in the classroom)
(the second I'm working on is how I met my band mate--when he tried to mug me for drug money in a Baltimore alley)
A mobile game surprised the world with money that can be used in real life, a set of rules that can land you in real prison, and an addictive and fun gameplay that doesn't feel like work, but by all means its just work.
(Also, I would like to suggest in making a case to the admin to create a subgroup called ~creative.writing.prompts for this, because I always enjoyed the sub
writingpromptson the site that must not be named).Two problems: 1) Santa cannot, in fact, tell if Reploids are sleeping or awake, and 2) the Maverick Hunters can't tell whether Santa qualifies as human. Awkward.
This was a quest hook from my possibly-dead D&D campaign, maybe it'll get better use here:
A mushroom colony releases hallucinogenic spores to live a shared dream where they are mobile and can see the world. Later, it turns out that other creatures can join the dream.
This sounds like it may have inspired Children of Ruin.
Well that sounds like a book I need to check out! Thank you for the recommendation!
Due to overpopulation society has ended up in "shifts". You share the same home with 1-2 people and may know someone from an adjacent shift only in passing or passed messages.
I apologize if I'm not supposed to comment here, but I don't understand this, I would appreciate it if someone could explain
Sure, I'll try to clarify.
The concept was a setting where due to space being at a premium society had split into informal/formal periods of wakefulness that fill that space with as much activity as possible. Someone else uses your room when you're not there, and your place of work has an even balance of activity 24-7.
Due to that, physical interaction with a large chunk of the population becomes indirect and communication asynchronous (and other implications I'll ignore).
If there were three shifts, A/B/C, someone from A might receive notes in their room from C and leave them for B. You might make a friend in another wakefulness shift and always be groggy when they're fresh. You could focus on how compromises are made decorating a shared space, different cultures that emerged in the different shifts, changing shift as an allegory, etc.
Interesting. It sounds like how things work in the Navy. I have heard that unless you are in the upper ranks typically your bed is shared and you sleep in shifts, once you are up and gone someone else gets to use the bed.
Once again, the end of days falls upon the mortal plane. Once again, the Champion of Good faces off against the Avatar of all Evil for the fate of humanity. Once again, they fall in love, and once again, there is no definitive winner. The powers that be are starting to get a little upset.
Here's a fun idea, I called it 'The Kingdom of Dave.'
Not yet figured out how to get a story out of it. But the basic idea is that this ongoing trend of individuality peaks. In this world, every individual is their own king, in their own private country with its own currency, customs and whatever wacky laws they decide to enact.
You have alliances with friends. Anyone you get into a disagreement with could effectively declare actual war on you. Anyone who comes to visit may need the proper Visa documentation. Stuff like that. It can be any form of government, past or present. Public services, such as the police or health providers, function like the UN.
There exist followers of a deity who doesn't yet exist, but who will retroactively judge them (ala Roko's basilisk)
Great thread idea!
I've been thinking about writing a sci fi story about asteroid 16 "Psyche", which NASA is hoping to investigate in 2029:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/nasa-mission-10-000-quadrillion-190000454.html
They think it's made of iron and nickel, worth trillions of dollars, but what if it was something else entirely?
The Cat-pocalypse
The lethargic tomcat finally lifted his paw and turned around. Having given his final farewell to his caretakers, it was now time to scavenge for food... by himself! Oh the tragedy...
Cats surviving after the Apocalypse - perhaps an engineered disease or bio weapon - wiped out all or most humans. Of course, this is based on the fantasy trope that cats are self-conscious beings. I would love to read how they raid a supermarket and work around their physical limitations.