Okay, so I’m supposed to be doing a Uni assignment and studying for a test, but stuff it.
I haven’t written much lately, partly due to a lack of time and inspiration, and partly because I realised I was horrible at writing actual characters, as opposed to events. Everybody I ever created ended up being either wooden or apparently suffering from MPD, and when I stole someone for a fanfic, they came across very OOC.
According to my notes at the time, I wrote this after a marathon D&D session, woke up the following morning and barely remembered typing it.
Anyway, this was written back in ‘07, when I was still in high school, for a competition then running on a board I frequented, called ‘In-a With-a While-a’. The rules were as follows:Does anyone remember Theatre Sports? Improv theatre with random actors [and wannabe actors] and some kind of point-scoring system that was all fun.
Well, I thought I could use one of them to pep up the writing activity around here. That is, “In-a, With-a, While-a”, where the story centres around that central plot. For example, the DS9 episode _The Forsaken_ could be boiled down to: In-a turbolift, With-a melting shapeshifter, While-a strange alien probe causes havok.
The rules:
1] You have approximately 24 hours2] So therefore, no novels. Short stories and one-shots only. Though, if you *WANT* to make a series out of it, I’ll do my level best to make that an extra challenge.
3] OCs can come and play, but no trying to confuse the readers
4] You can only write grousome deaths if the victim deserves it.
5] Any universe you please, as long as you make it clear which one you’re playing with.
The board was mainly an X-Men board, but had an original fiction section, and had at that time recently branched out into a number of other fandoms. It’s long gone now, but @Internutter was the webmaven, and she’s currently trying to make a go of it as an actual-factual author - check her stuff out, it’s much better than mine!
The topic went on for about thirty pages, with countless challenges and responses. Here’s the only one I ever entered, and the challenge it was for.
—–
In-a Carnival, With-a Doctor, While-a bad guy is defeated
As I walk into Nerdvana - the biggest collection of second-hand games, whether they be computer, console, board, or tabletop, to visit my neck of the woods in, well, ever - and gaze around with wide, bespectacled eyes, I hear some unwelcome words from - I look in their direction - yes, the most stereotypical popular girls I have ever laid eyes on;
What appears to be Harpy Prime: “It’s like, like a big freakshow. . .shouldn’t these…people be in, like, a carnival or something?”
A Harpy Secundus, in a sycophantish tone: "They’re already in one. I mean, like, who would care about this stuff anyway, especially when they could be watching Big Brother?“
Oh well, I suppose stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.
They all start giggling, and I resolve to ignore them and start doing what I came here for - namely, finding certain games. As I pass by a large collection of SNES games, I overhear part of a discussion that mentions one of my quarries. Hopeful, I pay more attention, but apparently it was only in passing, and now the guy’s gone back to browsing. As I resume my quest, something he says makes me suppress a snort of laughter.
“Doctor Mario? Tetris rip-off - but at least it’s better than Mario Golf or Sonic Bureaucracy - who thought that was a good idea for a game, anyway? They should be shot.” As sad as it is, he’s not joking. Someone actually made a game about bureaucracy, possibly the slowest-moving thing ever discovered or devised, that featured a character whose raison d'etre is, or at least was, speed. He’s right though, whoever approved that one should’ve been up against a wall, blindfolded, and given a cigarette before they could sign the approval.
Continuing, I pass the purchase section for SNES, N64, and Gamecube games, and decide to take a quick look around to get my bearings. After all, I wouldn’t want to miss the section I’m looking for because I was busy watching one of the game demos they have up on the big screen. By happenstance, I’ve stopped outside one of the freeplay areas - more than that, a freeplay area that has one of the games I’m looking for loaded. After a brief search, I find the person running this booth and attempt to bargain with them for that copy of the game, since I’m not guaranteed to find it when I actually get to the section that, theoretically, should have it. Unfortunately, they don’t want to part with their copy, either because they weren’t planning on it in the first place, or my haggling skills just weren’t up to scratch. Of course, it is quite difficult to do so when there is the sound of twenty different games and the accompanying human exultations/lamentations. Oh well, it wasn’t a total loss, some of the spontaneous outbursts were quite funny (“YES!! Take THAT, Kefka! No more will your horrible laugh taunt my dreams! Once again, there can be peace throughout the land!”).
After my little sidetrip, I got turned around (seriously, can’t they lay these stalls out in something approximating a logical order?) and found myself back near the entrance. To my surprise, the harpies were still around, making snide comments and laughing irritatingly. Just as I was about to delve back into the maze, though, a girl, quite obviously a fellow nerd, walked past them with one of those little robot peripherals for the NES - y'know the thing, that total flop. As she walked past, it seemingly spontaneously reached out with its’ little claw and grabbed Harpy Primes’ hair. Well, she just about hit the roof, she jumped that high. Shrieking, she batted it away, screaming all the louder when it held on for a second before its’ grip failed. She and her toadies ran out, screeching all the way.
There was a stunned silence for a moment, as everyone processed exactly what had happened. Then one person clapped slowly, admiringly, then another, and another, until everyone in the immediate area was applauding. The object of our esteem blushed a little, then gave a little bow as she picked up her implement of retribution and showed us a remote she held in her other hand.
I closed my eyes and looked heavenward.
I was home.
—–
So whaddya think? On a scale of one to claw-my-eyes-out-and-forget-ever-reading-this, how bad was it?
Originally, the bad guy was Kefka, but it sort of mutated out of my hands.
And yes, I know the antagonists were horrible, horrible stereotypes and I should feel ashamed of myself. All I can say in my own defence is I’ve actually interacted with people like that, and whatever hidden depths they may have or virtues they uphold, they hid it well for the duration of my interactions with them.