So I've been poking around /r/writingprompts, and I thought of an idea: Every Friday, someone posts a writing prompt. It can be a specific type of scenario or something as general as a single word, but yeah. And every week, we challenge each other to write a short story--original or fanfiction--that fits that prompt. (a poem is fine too) We should probably make a schedule for who posts prompts when--like, one person posts a prompt the first week, then another person posts one the next week, and so on. If no one else wants to post prompts, I can do that myself. (And yes, I will absolutely challenge myself too.) Anyone down?
Okay, since it's Friday now, here's the week's prompt! A character, through some means outside of their control--a curse, a scientific experiment gone wrong, whatever--becomes some other species (animal, alien, whatever--hell, even human if the character is non-human)...and, contrary to what one might expect, actually likes their new form. Go nuts, and feel free to ask if you have any questions! (And if any of you wanna volunteer to post prompts, let me know!)
Oh my gosh this sounds FUN :D Also I think I have an RP like this I need to write it up in story form, eheheh
ooh yes good [camps out] after april nano is over and my novel mostly-finished ill be doing a lot of these :D
I present to you my Promp Fill Written with my OCs, Theodora "Teddy" Slaine, and Flannery "Flan" Roan. It is of potential canon status until I undoubtedly edit the whole sequence to fit whatever narrative they actually end up with but Flan changing species through possession like this is absolutely canon. It's probably also not as cheerful as @Acey had in mind :'D Spoiler: content warnings warnings for bodyhorror and nonconsensual body modding with mild to moderate sexual overtones. Also purple prose, probably.
Oh man, that gave me chills. Excellent work! And here's this week's prompt! "You're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here today..."
For the species change prompt, hope I'm not too late Starring Nasim bint Jawna and Salbrakmuir of Qhor, and a magical accident. Spoiler There's no smoke, no flash of light, not even a slow metamorphosis or shapeshift, or Nasim waking up to find herself transformed, but the actual thing having happened with no one present to witness it, leaving her to find herself changed when she looks into the mirror while brushing her teeth. It's a clasping of hands, that caused it. Or maybe not caused, just... faciliated it. Kickstarted it. The cause of the start, not the cause of the thing itself. A hand reached out in aid. We can do this. Doing this apparently necessitated changing what Nasim is to what Salbrakmuir is. And it just so showed itself by blood running into Nasim's eyes from her forehead, which now sported another pair of eyes. A pair of eyes that could perceive quite the list of things Nasim's old eyes could not perceive. Salbrakmuir, on the other hand, has that expression between "this was not supposed to happen" and "oh shit". "I... I'm pretty sure we can fix this somehow", they offer. Nasim waves it off. "Give me a moment to get the blood out of my eyes. And then give me a moment to process this because I have the feeling that I can see forever. Now, tissue and mirror, tissue and mirror..." "You'll get blood all over your bag, Nasim -- " "Who cares? I don't have stuff I can't wash stuff out by principle. Ah, there they are", and then Nasim stops. The irises of her lower two eyes are now white, and really shouldn't eat as much light as they do. She brushes her red -- red! Not ginger, but honest to god blood red -- fringe out of the way, and reveals two more white eyes, this time completely devoid of blood vessels, iris, and sclera. They can't actually see forever, and the overlay of things is pretty damn strange. But -- Salbrakmuir touches her shoulder. "Nasim? Are you ok?" "I can't actually see forever", she states. Salbrakmuir makes a face. "Of course not, that'd be ridiculous." Nasim lets the fringe fall down again. "What's the point then?" They sigh. "The point being that seeing forever would necessitate an unsustainable amount of energy and processing power, to comprehend things that are, by virtue of their distance, so small that electrons would look big in comparison, and--" "Salbrak. Sal. Saaaal. Shush. It was a joke." "...Oh." "I guess we can start with that... uh, glow? over there, because", Nasim tries to close her top eyes, and, failing that, covers them with her hands. "Nothing my human eyes can see looks like it gives off that glow in that shape." Salbrakmuir turns to the indicated direction, and squints. "Two hours by foot in that direction, a light suspended high above ground..." Nasim fishes out her phone and checks a map. "Ooh, that might be the light tower at Leviathan Jaw Shore. So not quite forever, got it." "No, that's magic you're seeing. It's like saying, hey, I can see the sun so I can see pretty damn far --" "Well, the sun is not that close", Nasim interjects, but Salbrakmuir continues. "Look, let me call my grandaunt, she can --" "Oh shush, this is awesome. Oh come on, don't look at me like that. You can see magic and stuff and I'm pretty sure you were substantially more scaly when I first met you. Did I get shapeshifting from this deal? Please tell me I got shapeshifting from this deal." Nasim holds out her hands and imagines... she imagines them longer, like those of a bat, and webbing between them, like wings. Something around the region of her armpits starts hurting, as if her tunic were too tight, and Salbrakmuir's expression grows more and more alarmed, until there's a hideous ripping sound, and Nasim spready her... well, they're not arms any more, not really, but closer to wings. So that's why the tunic was suddenly too tight, because the webbing extends to her hips. "Well", Nasim remarks, "I didn't quite think that through." "Beginner's mistake", Salbrakmuir deadpans. "You start with new appendages and then wonder where your organs have fucked off to." "Eh, practice makes perfect."
It's never too late! :D I'm posting the prompts weekly but honestly you can do whichever one(s) you feel like doing at any time. :) I'll read yours later, since I'm gonna be busy this weekend, but I'm excited to see it!
Prompt: "You're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here today... tonight." Spoiler "Sit down, sit down, there's enough space for everyone, Savatra, can you get more chairs, just smoosh the lines a bit everyone," Yond calls into the crowd. Wow, that's a lot of people here. Old faces. New faces. People who think they're new faces but Yond knows exactly who they are. Not that they know it. Spies. Agents. The more of the latter two, the better, honestly. Wouldn't be a secret gathering without one. Alhyaesh proposed mixing a slow-working numbing or paralyzing agent into the punch bowl, but there is a fine line between obvious and blatant, and Yond would really like to remain on the obvious side of the line. Besides, every agent who holds something to their pride would either be immune or forego the punch altogether, and those who would fall to it are not the people Yond wants to interact with. Those are unimportant. Cannon fodder. Space fillers. Those are necessary as well, in a way, Yond supposes. Can't have a secret meeting completely composed out of secret agents and spies. They might end up recognizing each other. Well, some recognition is part of the game. See which rulers and guilds send their representatives. Who may or may not be interested in what they have to say! It is going to be quite obvious that only the most clever of the buffering faceless masses will be able to follow Yond's remarks and that the true purpose of this meeting is getting information out to the spies, and maybe to identify promising new members, but making it blatant is just awful style, and utterly unbecoming of this endeavour. You can't just ask people for a dance. You have to court them. Yond claps their hands. A dimly lit backroom of the third-most average bar on the strip between inner city and suburbs in Rhaon, the next neighbour of Al-Amar, the biggest trade hub on the border of Beladur and the Sylkyet fiefdoms. A dimly lit backroom filled to the brim with people of all races and classes, no blatantly religious people, that would be the equivalent of a bright target painted on your backside during Talbaran target practice. People sitting on each others laps, or sharing a chair. The punch bowl has been replaced, and people are sitting on the table, and standing on it, leaning on the wall. Some are sitting on the beams, or otherwise hanging from the ceiling. The murmuring ceases momentarily. "A good evening to all of you who were able to make it", Yond announces. "And I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your attendance." Murmuring. Yond smiles. "Tonight's topic is going to be the Saleak legend of the Sleeping God. You might as yourself, what does this legend have to do with our cult? Who are the Saleak? Well, the latter are a people living in the far north reaches of Mernota. Private, but hospitable. Curious, but shy. Flesh and bone and blood like Sylkyekta and Beladi and Lahfar and Kalea, but live farther in the inhospitable reaches of Mernota than even the Mernotan ice people. A people of contradictions.", they narrate. "Much like our congregation here, don't you think? Our Grand Priestess At Teshiah posits Baltreshk is part of the commonly accepted collective pantheon, and yet there are seemingly no stories about them. They are a god of Blood, and yet the collective pantheon already has Aventura, goddess of War. They have control in the domain of the dead, and yet the collective pantheon already has Tershoet." Yond gazes into the audience. Captivated. Some new information. Information they had deliberately held back until now. In hindsight, easily deducable. Obviously hinted at. Omitted for the sake of brevity, and left open as an exercise for the potentially worthy mind, making people think about it. Not just giving answers. Answers are for people who don't want to think. Worded as answers for those who will join the buffer, but as questions for the inquirers. If you have to think about it, if you have to work out things, if you have to set your wits against it, it will permeate you. It will sneak into your knowledge. Into your opinions. Your morals. And then you will spread it, without even noticing, perhaps. And as it changes your environment, it makes everyone else more susceptive to the teachings. Or, at least, that's what they think. That's quite alright! A beautiful little game of I know you know I know, ad nauseam. There is no infinity in the presence of the breaker of circles. Yond continues. "They are a being who connects the living, and the dead. And, after this ultimate impossibility, what else is there that we cannot reach, if all restrictions have been lifted?" Ah, there is the murmuring. Yond lets them, just a little. Let them get their gears moving. Let them start thinking, but not quite reach a conclusion, not just yet. Keep them trying to catch up. They clap again. "Now, the Saleak have a legend. A legend of a child of Veire, different from Reyann and Kinnavari. A sleeping child, a child who died before the world began, and is now slumbering. Veire, heartbroken by this loss, tells the child stories of the world, in the hopes of enticing them to wake up - in her grief and madness not realizing that the stories are what keeps the child asleep, for the stories become dreams, and they are such sweet dreams that the child will not wake from them. The Saleak collect stories, tell them, build from them, and as along as they tell stories, Veire will have stories to tell to the child, and as long as Veire tells these stories, the child will not wake." Yond is quite sure they do not imagine the little scraps of 'contradiction' and 'discrepancy' from the audience. Yes, good. "But it's not a case of an 'if', it's a 'when'. The Saleak know that one day this child, this Sleeping God, will wake, and then, everything will change. They fear this change, even though a central element of their storytelling is changeing story elements. Even though they know it is inevitable in the end, and will accept it, but a large part of their religion and culture revolves around preventing it." Yond wants to smile, but they can't. They already are. It's all coming together. The audience is captivated. The audience is here. "You're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here tonight", Yond breathes, and it's so quiet they're sure that even the people squished against the wall heard them loud and clear. "You are here, because tonight, tonight our work is finished. In this moment, in far Carcela, the twelfth god rises to join the pantheon that has forgotten them. You are here tonight, because I did not want you interfering with this."
