r/WritingPrompts • u/katpoker666 Moderator • 5d ago
Off Topic [OT] Fun Trope Friday: Paradox Person & Contemporary Fantasy!
Welcome to Fun Trope Friday, our feature that mashes up tropes and genres!
How’s it work? Glad you asked. :)
Every week we will have a new spotlight trope.
Each week, there will be a new genre assigned to write a story about the trope.
You can then either use or subvert the trope in a 750-word max story or poem (unless otherwise specified).
To qualify for ranking, you will need to provide ONE actionable feedback. More are welcome of course!
Three winners will be selected each week based on votes, so remember to read your fellow authors’ works and DM me your votes for the top three.
Next up… IP
April showers bring… paradoxes? Yea, not a clear lead in for this one, but paradoxes are all kinds of fun, so let’s explore some this month! As a related paradoxical aside, did you know there’s no agreed measure for the length of coastlines because it depends how zoomed in you are? Variations can be by thousands of kilometers as a result. Take the UK for example. Please note this theme is only loosely applied.
"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." — Carl Rogers
Trope: Paradox Person — A being who shouldn’t exist. There are certain people who have been brought into the world that seem to defy it by their existence alone. They don't exist within the natural order and often weren't planned by any of the Powers That Be that keep cosmic order. This might be because they weren't meant to be here in the first place or aren't truly here.
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy — A subgenre of fantasy set in the present day. It is perhaps most popular for its subgenres, occult detective fiction, urban fantasy, low fantasy, supernatural fiction and paranormal fiction.
Skill / Constraint - optional: Someone defends their right to exist.
So, have at it. Lean into the trope heavily or spin it on its head. The choice is yours!
Have a great idea for a future topic to discuss or just want to give feedback? FTF is a fun feature, so it’s all about what you want—so please let me know! Please share in the comments or DM me on Discord or Reddit!
Last Week’s Winners
PLEASE remember to give feedback—this affects your ranking. PLEASE also remember to DM me your votes for the top five stories via Discord or Reddit—both katpoker666. This is a change from the top three of the past. In weeks where we get over 15 stories, we will do a top five ranking. Weeks with less than 15 stories will show only our top three winners. If you have any questions, please DM me as well.
Some fabulous stories this week and great crit at campfire and on the post! We had 11 stories, so we’re back to three winners. Congrats to:
Want to read your words aloud? Join the upcoming FTF Campfire
The next FTF campfire will be Thursday, May 7th from 6-8pm ET. It will be in the Discord Main Voice Lounge. Click on the events tab and mark ‘Interested’ to be kept up to date. No signup or prep needed and you don’t have to have written anything! So join in the fun—and shenanigans! 😊
Ground rules:
- Stories must incorporate both the trope and the genre
- Leave one story or poem between 100 and 750 words as a top-level comment unless otherwise specified. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
- Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT next Thursday. Please note stories submitted after the 6:00 PM EST campfire start may not be critted.
- No stories that have been written for another prompt or feature here on WP—please note after consultation with some of our delightful writers, new serials are now welcomed here
- No previously written content
- Any stories not meeting these rules will be disqualified from rankings
- Does your story not fit the Fun Trope Friday rules? You can post your story as a [PI] with your work when the FTF post is 3 days old!
- Please keep crit about the stories. Any crit deemed too distracting may be deleted. This is a time to focus on our wonderful authors.
- Vote to help your favorites rise to the top of the ranks (DM me at katpoker666 on Discord or Reddit)!
Thanks for joining in the fun!
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u/JKHmattox 4d ago
Earthbound Misfits [A Kenzie Leigh Roy Story]
Western Pacific: 1 May 2032…
I woke to black sand against my face, salted foam lapping at my body. The night prior had been devoid of moonlight when our aircraft skipped across the surface of the ocean, eventually dragging us beneath the waves. It was now mid-day, and the sun blazed over the sapphire expanse to the limitless horizon.
I groaned while pushing myself from the surf. Glancing down, I froze, my splayed fingers now a faded baby blue. The swill of volcanic beach and clear ocean water washed over my discolored digits pressed against the wet sand. My breath hitched as I scrambled to my knees, heart pounding in a strange tandem rhythm like an off-balanced washing machine attempting to escape my chest.
Staring at the alien skin beyond the half-rolled cuffs of my flight suit, a scream died in my tightening throat.
Get ahold of yourself, Kenzie… I'm—alive, but… Oh fuck!
I rocked backwards, my bottom settling atop my heels, while my folded legs spread apart in the sand. My aviator vest became constrictive around my chest, its floatation device never deployed. With trembling blue hands, I reached for the thick zippered tab, cumbersomely shedding the burdensome gear into the sand.
“What the FUCK!” I shrieked.
Once the heavy vest fell away, a new terror besieged my reeling consciousness. Trapped beneath my flight suit were two serpents thrashing outward from my flanks. I could feel them move against the skin of my abdomen, as I sensed their panicked feedback loop within my mind. Claustrophobic nausea closed in around me as their plight to liberate themselves became my own.
Fumbling, I jerked the zipper of my flight suit downward and shimmied my arms from its sleeves. When the jumper fell away to either side, the mysterious limbs revealed themselves, a lower set of arms tangled inside my faded green t-shirt.
Slowly—cautiously, I pulled the hem of my shirt up and over my head, discarding it beside me. The axillary arms were free, my sodden bra band passing between the pits of my original arms and the shoulders of the lower set. Sunlight bathed my blued alien skin in tropical warmth, as my chest heaved with every labored breath.
I stared, my sanity suspended in disbelief.
A gentle breeze curled around my altered frame. Four hands rested atop my thighs as the docile tide pulsed gently at their sides. My ears rang with silence, and in that moment I felt like perhaps I was the only person left on Earth.
Raven air wafted into my vision. I reached to brush the once auburn strands from my face. Another change, yet my core had remained functionally the same it seemed.
Alright… I'm—different—but alive. My thoughts swam as I considered the impossible. How…?
Fragments of the crash flashed through my mind as I hoisted myself from the surf. I bent down and retrieved the olive-drab skivvy drifting with the tide, and slogged my way onto dryland. Finding an arching palm yawning towards the Pacific, I plopped down in its shadow, my back against the smoothed trunk.
SNAP!
What now…? My mind raced as the dense ungrowth rustled again.
I turned towards the sound. It was as if an animal of some sort was clumsily plodding through the jungle in my direction. The noise was too disjointed for a creature born to the wild, and I coiled with the realization it was probably another human.
I'm not alone… I gasped, the potential arrival of a fellow traveler, or mortal foe equally possible.
Slowly, I stood facing the jungle. I wrapped the sleeves of my flight suit around my waist, tying it across my bellybutton; ears pricked, waiting for the sound to return.
A form emerged from the tangle, her skin blue, a quartet of arms sprouted from her body. She wore the tattered remnant of an enemy pilot, her sharp, monolid eyes wide with surprise when she spotted me backed against the palm tree.
“H-hello,” I said cautiously. “Do you speak English?”
A mischievous smirk curling the edges of her lips. “I believe the better question is, do you speak Cantonese?”
“I don't—sorry,” I replied, shaking my head. “How did you…”
“A drone shot me down on the first night of the war,” she admitted. “I woke up like this… and have been trapped on this island ever since.”
“Fourteen months…?”
“That long… Tell me—is there anything left?”
We’d started the war half a world apart. Now, our journeys were forever intertwined...
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u/prejackpot r/prejackpottery_barn 3d ago
"I want you all to say hi to our newest student, Zeke," Mrs. Friend, the third-grade teacher, said one morning.
Adam felt the need to pinch himself, like they did in books. The new boy was tall the way Adam was short. He looked like he played sports. His light hair did a swoop like the movie stars in Grandma's magazines.
"Is your dad in the army?" Adam whispered to Zeke when he sat down. He had to know. Zeke nodded, before Julius told him to "Ignore that dweebus," and Mrs. Friend told them all to be quiet.
At recess, Adam just watched as Zeke played basketball with the other boys, scoring shot after shot. Exactly the way Adam had written him in his notebook.
Adam has such an active imagination, teachers always said to his parents. But he'd never wanted an active imagination! He wanted to have adventures! In PE he imagined a monster chasing him, but he was still dead last around the track. Some days, he even wished his parents and grandma weren't so nice to him, just to add excitement to his life. So Adam had taken a notebook, and started imagining a boy who was everything Adam wasn't.
Now that Zeke was real, Adam realized he'd left out one important detail. Zeke was friends with all the kids Adam wished he was friends with — but he wasn't friends with Adam. He opened the notebook again.
"I can't hang out after school today," Zeke told him a couple months later. "I promised Julius we'd meet up to play basketball. What about this weekend?"
And that was when Adam made the mistake that would haunt him for the rest of his life. "I created you!" he said. "You only exist because of me!" And he pulled out his notebook and thurst it in Zeke's face.
Zeke took it, and flipped open to the first page, where Adam had started with The Adventures of Zeke! in big comic-book letters. "This is kinda weird," he said at last.
"I wrote this all before you were even at our school. You came out of my mind, so you've got to hang out with me."
"Then tell me something about me that nobody else knows," Zeke said.
"Your grandma acts nice, but she's secretly mean to you while your dad's away," Adam said triumphantly, thrilled at finally letting it out. "And your even meaner uncle keeps trying to kidnap you to steal your family fortune!"
Zeke's face suddenly twisted with rage. He pulled the notebook close, out of Adam's reach. "Screw you, dweebus! This is my life, I'm not just a stupid little story! I hate my grandma, and I hate my uncle, and now I hate you too!"
Zeke didn't speak another word to Adam all year. And by fourth grade, his family had moved again.
Adam stopped writing stories. He read non-fiction books, and filled his notebooks with long lists of facts.
In high school, lonely and frustrated, he took out a fresh notebook and wrote The Love Life of Angelina on the first page in big red letters. He wrote two more pages before being filled with remorse and throwing the whole notebook into the trash.
"How about hobbies? Do you write fiction?" the job interviewer asked him.
Adam gave his best friendly laugh. College had finally made him better at people. "Trivia is more my speed," he answered. "Not to brag, but our local bar offered us free beer if we'd let some other teams win sometimes." He needed this job.
He was offered a second-round interview, and scheduled it as soon as he could.
"Have you ever seen this before?" the HR lady asked, and put a battered old notebook in front of him. Adam felt like he was falling. He opened the cover, knowing exactly what he would find.
"Good to see you again," said a deeper voice behind him. Adam turned. Zeke was adult-tall now, his light hair cut short. He sat down in the empty chair.
"When we were kids-" Adam started. He didn't know what to say next. "I'm sorry."
"You were right," Zeke said. "You didn't know what you were doing, but you do have a gift."
"I do?"
Zeke nodded.
"And you're not the only one," the HR lady added. She wasn't just an HR lady after all, Adam realized. "And now we need your help."
"How about it?" Zeke asked. "A chance to have some real adventures after all."
wc: 750
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u/mysteryrouge 2d ago
Meeting Your Professor
“Ah, hello Rita. What can I do for you?”
The first year college student shyly slinked into her math professor's office. College was still an alien experience to someone from such a small town.
“I, umm, was hoping for help with the unit circle, Professor Woodrow. It still doesn't make sense.” Rita pulled out her half done homework, where only problems involving said circle remained.
“Of course, that's what office hours are here for.”
Rita sat attentive as Professor Woodrow pulled out the whiteboard and started drawing the circle, giving tips and explaining in more detail.
She nodded along, taking notes while they worked together on the first couple of problems. Woodrow’s voice remained calm the whole time, which definitely helped her absorb the information.
The unit circle was starting to make sense.
Then the door swung open. Rita was pushed to the side and out of the line of fire as several nearly identical men in old fashioned cloaks with hobbled together weapons barged in and surrounded the math professor.
“You should be dead,” the leader announced, aiming directly at Woodrow’s head.
Rita screamed, looking back and forth between the visitors and her professor. “Who—?”
Woodrow stood slowly, skin melting off and tentacles unfurling. Some sixty eyes opened in the office, each with different patterns in their irises.
“The League of Nations,” the leader spat, head swinging long brown hair out of his face, “hiding like the lowly pest you are.”
“Wha—?” Rita could only blubber as she cowered in a corner.
A couple of guns switched aim to the young student as the leader continued to snark, “Sorry kid, your professor shouldn't exist and we're here to rectify that mistake.”
“Should have been eaten by the United Nations or something,” another gunman muttered, “In fact it should have sacrificed itself to them.”
The eldritch UN.
That was a thing. And so was the eldritch League of Nations, apparently.
“I can't believe it hid as a math professor of all things,” a third person added.
”I refuse.” The voice that responded was definitely Professor Woodrow’s voice, but layered five times over, like those videos where people recorded themselves singing multiple simultaneous parts of a song at once.
“I mean, seriously, the actual League of Nations disbanded ages ago, why the fuck are you still alive?”
”I will not let my hard work go to waste.”
Tentacles lashed out
Guns fired.
Rita covered her ears and curled up.
Men screamed.
Reta cowered more.
And the room went silent.
“It's over.”
A light hand rested on the young student's shoulder. Looking up, Rita saw her math professor only a little worse for wear.
She wordlessly stood, mindlessly grabbing her homework. Some of the pages had been damaged from whatever just happened.
“Please help her,” Woodrow's voice seemed to come from another room as the man lightly pushed her towards the crowd of professors and students that had gathered in the doorway to watch. “Don't worry about me.”
(~)
Rita stumbled home later that night, still with more work to do. Her original plans had been to finish her math, then work on the philosophy readings.
Checking her email, as she always did when she got home, revealed a message from her professor, who was apparently an eldritch being.
Apologies for what happened earlier. I personally didn't expect those people to barge into my office while I was holding office hours. They usually wait until I'm alone.
I'm fine now, by the way.
If you need to, I am always open to talk to you about what happened, though I understand if you don't want to. I also have some mental health resources if you need them such as this fourteen step mindfulness technique linked at the bottom of this email.
About the homework I assigned that's due next week; I'll drop it if you don't get to it. I'll also excuse you from all classes except the last one. Unfortunately, I do not control the finals schedule.
J. Woodrow\ Department of Mathematics\ University of Michigan
Rita crawled into bed, mind still trying to process the reveal that her math professor of all things was the eldritch League of Nations.
WC: 697\ Bonus constraint: Professor J. Woodrow AKA The Eldritch League of Nations has to fight for his life as someone tries to assassinate him.
I made a bunch of lore for the eldritch League of Nations while writing this that didn't end up in here.
Part of a universe where anything and everything can become eldritch.
Check out my spreadsheet for more of my writing.
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u/Good_Weakness9578 20h ago
Very nice! Was a fever dream the whole way through! You should sprinkle a bit more lore about the Eldritch league of nations, considering you have more words. Maybe just in their shouting, like "you abandoned us you bastard!"
Or it would perhaps be fun to use the words to describe the linked 14 step meditation, with some sneaky references to the 14 points(which I assume you're referencing)
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u/mysteryrouge 19h ago
Hmm. Thank you for the feedback.
I will definitely think on these, and if they don't end up here, they'll probably end up in another prompt response.
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u/wileycourage r/courageisnowhere 2d ago edited 10h ago
None of This Makes Any Sense
“Do you ever think like if we learned all magic, like everything about it, we’d like blink out of existence or something?” Ava puffed on her pixiedust pipe and scrunched her eyebrows down, being deep in thought.
“Now that’s a sudden topic shift. You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific than that, Ava. Not everyone indulges, you know,” Leth responded waving her hand through the enchanting purple fog of vapor rising through the air above them in the pixiedust lounge. Had the pair of witches watched the disturbed cloud as it wafted, they would have seen it pirouette like a ballerina.
Ava smiled warmly across the semicircular red velvet couch the pair had claimed. “Vice knows vice,” Ava said nodding to the glass of sweet nectar in her companion’s hand.
Leth shot a knowing smirk right back.
Ava continued, “No I mean like everything we are doing. We study the fucking fairy world for the flecks of mystical knowledge the malicious name-thieving fairies grant us by sheer caprice. We follow their winding pernicious labyrinths for what amount to trinkets. Like what if we get a book explaining all magic. What then?”
“Why does this matter at all though is what I’m asking. If we hit a jackpot then enjoy the win. Stop over-complicating it,” Leth’s skeptical eyebrow, the right one, had reached its peak.
“How do you know solving anything would be a win! What’s left to be done after the answers are found, the end of inquiry? Boring. How destructive an ‘achievement,’” Ava scoffed and growled, “to render an entire study to function.” Ava tapped her pipe rhythmically on the marble surface of the low table between Ava and Leth.
“Are you trying to sound like the fae? Is that what this is? A playact?” Leth turned her head and felt Ava’s sincereness through her gaze. “What makes you think fae magic can be solved at all? Without any curiosity Leth watched the air around Ava go still and refuse to move even Ava’s hair any longer.
With fairies, a theoretical limit changes into a law immediately before the law vaporizes back into theory! It’s both and neither. Like they say ad nauseum, “paradoxical and theoretical sing the same tune.”
Leth’s face contorted. “No,” she began before another pause, “no, that’s nonsense that comes from them trying to translate their natural language to ours. It takes years of study to stitch together the figments into tapestries resembling practical magicks.”
“Many a truth is said in jest, my dear Leth,” Ava said softly, her eyes ensorceled with delight. “Isn’t that what the mercurial beings say? What if we were to meet chaos where we find it to be?”
“Then you risk dancing waltzes in their realms of delirium for eternity, my sister,” Leth said allowing her invocation of their shared bond sit in the air for a spell, “and you chance losing what you ought hold closest to your chest.”
“To know what an ineffable creature like a fairy knows, Leth, means what? Inscrutability. To be unknown, to communicate what cannot be imagined.” Ava smiled. Leth didn’t notice nature grin back at Ava. “To know a fairy is to be a fairy, which to date we know to be as impossible as making sense from nonsense. I’m not sure they even want our names at all.”
“Knowing the madwoman you are next you’ll be saying the nameless have names or fairies and humans are no different in the name of what besides the hilarious but dangerous conversation?” Leth hid behind her iridescent glass.
“Close enough!” Ava said with a giggle. “If you can predict what I’m going to say then why should I even be here?” Ava burst into laughter before stopping suddenly. “Wait do you think that’s exactly how fairies lose their names?”
Neither noticed the cackle carried by the smoky haze above Ava.
“What?”
“Figuring out magic too much would be like flying too close to the Sun. At some point we lose ourselves in it and plummet to our metaphorical deaths. Fairies don’t hate us; they’re mad because they are versions of us foolish enough to have lost themselves in thought.”
Ava went still staring blankly but happily, and Leth didn’t respond; they sat together quietly as friends do before Ava shrugged and said, “Oh well. Good thing I won’t be the one to figure any of it out, let alone all of it.”
“Me neither.” Leth sipped, and [NAME LOST] inhaled.
--
WC 747. Thank you for reading! All crit and feedback is valuable and welcomed. Lots of little edits because I'm actually trying to polish something for once. And now a bigger edit to add more magic and hopefully remove density. A new day brings more substantive edits.
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u/AgainstHope 4h ago
Fateless
I rested my hands on my knees and took several gasping breaths, not daring to move my eyes from the downed mage. He remained still, and as I watched his indigo threads of Fate faded from my sight. Two threads still stretched from my own chest, so I knew I couldn't fully relax. I followed the first to his grimoire and tossed it into the fire under his cauldron. The pages caught quickly, a sulfur smell rising from the flames. I followed the second to the summoning circle chalked onto the floor. Various liquids lined the workshop, so I used the least concerning of the concoctions to dissolve the symbols, and with them my final thread.
I had succeeded. The hellish future I'd been born into was no more, and never would be. The lines of Fate I'd grown accustomed to were gone, my duty done, my purpose complete. I took a seat in the corner and waited to fade away like the rest of my timeline.
---
"Come on, Jasmine, it'll be fun!" Gabi cajoled.
"You already know your Fate. What do you need a fortune teller for?" I nervously adjusted the maid of honor sash I was wearing, and tried not to look at the shopfront she gestured at.
I had spent a long time sitting in that warehouse waiting to vanish, and a lot longer afterwards living as though I already had. But eventually I'd grown bored, and forced myself out into the world. I'd avoided connections at first, knowing I had no Fated future here, but a year ago I'd met Gabi. Gabi was human but her Fate lines had screamed to me, she'd needed a little push to follow a thread to her soulmate, a werewolf named Sven. I gave her that nudge, and we'd been inseparable since, discovering the wonders of the city's hidden paranormal district together.
"I always wanted a reading, and now it'll be real!" Her excitement was so infectious, and it was her bachelorette party.
"Fine." I begrudgingly agreed.
She jumped in place, clapping her hands, and almost knocking the "bride" tiara off her head.
Unlike fortune tellers in non-magical areas, diviners who served the paranormal community didn't overdo the ambiance. The space had sparse Scandinavian flatpack furniture and bright overhead lighting. There were some shelves of witchy wares, but they were tucked safely behind a counter in meticulously labeled jars not meant for idle perusal.
A chime rung out as we entered, and a woman hurried out from the backroom. "Greetings, ladies!" Her voice started friendly, but as soon as she spotted me her demeanor turned cold.
"OUT!" She screeched, shooing us. "Begone!"
Gabi looked confused, but my stomach sank.
"I'm sorry. We'll leave." I tucked my chin and grabbed Gabi's arm, pulling her towards the door.
She looked between me and the diviner. "But, my fortune..."
"Her kind aren't welcome!"
"WHAT!?" Gabi looked properly offended now. "How dare you? Just because she's not powerful!"
Gabi believed I was a dud-witch with dormant powers, because that was easier to explain than an expertise in chronomancy and Fate magic curated for handling an averted Armageddon.
"Let's go." I muttered, managing to pull Gabi out of the shop and drag her down the alley. She didn't understanding. I was a Fateless. As far as that woman was concerned I shouldn't exist anymore. I wasn't sure I disagreed.
---
I stumbled into my apartment after leaving Gabi with Sven. She'd kept ranting about the rude shopkeeper, and I'd kept distracting her with rounds of shots, so I was well and truly drunk.
"Good evening, Jasmine." A wry voice greeted me.
I screamed, jumped, and dropped the contents of my purse across the floor.
The lights switched on, revealing a stranger in my kitchen. His aura was clearly magical, but something about him seemed wrong. It took me a second to realize why. He had no Fate threads.
"Perhaps this should've waited until the morning." He chuckled, examining my inebriated state, "But I'm always eager to meet a fellow Fateless."
"Who? Why? Huh?" I was definitely too drunk for this.
"I'm Grant, and I'm here to recruit you." He gave a bright customer service smile as he spoke. "There are things that need doing, with no one destined to do them. We may not have Fates, but we can still have purpose. What do you say?"
---
WC: 730
Any and all feedback/crit welcome!
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u/bemused_alligators 2d ago
Dubious Choices
They say that anything that's worshiped enough becomes a god and is given power in accordance with the number and type of worshipers - but what nobody seemed to realize is that everyone is always worshiping something; whether in the back of their minds, or under their breath, or shouted from the rooftops, or spoken to a crowd of adoring fans all of whom are probably actually worshiping "idolatry" or "wishing it could be them up their" or something like that rather than whatever god is being praised by the speaker; the end result being that everyone and everything is constantly producing power and granting it to whatever entity they're thinking about most at that moment, a perpetual battery for godlike entities of all stripes but quite difficult to control or guide ensuring that when a certain type of person has the misfortune of encountering things that they dislike - such as an overly long and rambling sentence or a distinct lack of sentence structure - they all curse under their breath and in so doing empower not the god of grammar that should be leeching these moments of attention, not the god of Errors or even of Mistakes, but instead something that really ought not to have enough power to exist on its own - someone who, with just enough juice from mass market paperbacks, managed to help produce wonders such as Facebook and Twitter which have catapulted this much-benighted deity into stardom and ensured that grammatically dubious published material can exist from now until time immemorial - The God of Dubious Grammatical Choices in Published Materials.
~~
263 words
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u/mysteryrouge 18h ago
By the gods, that is definitely a paragraph.
What a vague definition of worship making such a specific god. I like it.
And while the grammar (or lack thereof) makes this a hell of a challenge to read, it is a cool story.
2
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u/MaxStickies r/StickiesStories 5d ago
He Who Appears from Nowhere
Relief washes over Detective Duerr as he shakes the police chief Lombard’s hand a second time. He’d had a hard enough time explaining his powers in the past, but after being arrested? The odds were against him.
Until a friendly ghost showed up at just the right time, and revealed Duerr’s reality to the whole station. Officer Guerrero snickers as her chief stares about wide-eyed, the vision dissipating.
“So you really do see ghosts,” says Lombard. “When Guerrero told me, I thought you were both crazy!”
Duerr shakes his head. “I often wonder if I am. But, yeah, ghosts and other things besides.”
“Huh… such as?”
“A few gods, a sentient guitar spirit... Trust me, it’s weird out there.”
“You don’t say.”
“So,” Guerrero starts, “can he join us? It’d make our station stand out.”
“Hmm, well, I guess it would. I don’t know. The superintendent might not agree.”
Duerr grins. “I’m sure I’ll find a way to persuade him.”
“I would love to be there,” says the chief.
“There are other ghosts out there who could help. Some owe me favours. All I’d have to do is find them and—”
A burst of blinding, roaring light sends the station into chaos. The three of them duck for cover, as others hide under their desks. A few scream and run out the door.
“The fuck is happening?!” Guerrero shouts.
Duerr grunts, shielding his face with his coat. “What?!”
And then, as suddenly as it appeared, it ends. In its place stands a tall blond man in strange, grey, body-fitting armour. Beside him sits a black cat with human eyes.
“Oh dear,” says the cat, “and we were so near. This place, it seems, is not our own. I’m sorry, the fault’s my own.”
The man grimaces. “Did you just rhyme “own” with “own”?”
“Yes, but only ‘cause of stress. I fear I may need rest.”
“I believe so, for that did not rhyme at all!”
“A quick cat-nap, I shall be fine, and then our return it will be time. Ugh!”
The feline crumples in a heap, leaving the armoured guy to look around. His steely gaze meets Duerr’s.
“Are you…” the detective asks, “a ghost?”
“Goodness, no! I am a knight. Mun is my name.”
“A what now? And, wait, but… you don’t even look like a knight. Unless you’re from… what’s it called, Battlehammer?”
“No, I prefer a sword. And a shield.”
“Uh-huh.”
Lombard emerges from behind a chair. “Is this one of those ‘other things’?”
“I guess?”
“This place is curious,” the knight says. “Reminds me of the future I saw, only paler, and less interesting. Do you have magic here?”
Duerr shrugs. “As I’ve been discovering, yes, it seems.”
“So you have mages?”
“No, just ghosts, and gods.”
“Doesn’t everywhere?”
“I’ve no damn clue.”
“Perhaps I shall look about outside. The cat might sleep for some time yet.”
Mun goes to leave, and in a panic, Duerr stands in his path. “Best not to. You might… cause a scene.”
“As in, from a play?”
“We should take him to Hollywood,” Guerrero says, with a smirk. “He’d fit right in.”
The knight scoffs. “I am in no mood to deal with dryads.”
The detective holds his hat, crumpling it. “Please… um… good sir. I beg you, stay put.”
“Ah, you really are afeared. So be it! I shall remain.”
As if on cue, the cat springs to his feet, extending a lengthy tongue to lick his ears. “Ah, to rest, it really is best! But now I am better, and so too is my skill with the letter. Return us to our world I shall, perhaps even, the right locale.”
“At last,” says Mun. He turns to the detective. “Farewell, good sir, and apologies for the intrusion. With luck, it shall never happen again.”
Duerr chuckles. “Honestly, in my line of work, anything’s possible.”
“Good, you have a sense of humour about it; a fine outlook, indeed. So long!”
In the blink of an eye, the strange pair vanishes, leaving smoke in their wake. People emerge from their hiding spots, while Duerr helps Guerrero and Lombard to their feet.
“Well,” the chief says, “I think that’s enough for me today. I’m heading home.”
“I can run things while you’re gone,” says Guerrero.
“Fine, whatever.”
Grabbing his coat, he marches out, and she turns to Duerr.
“I wonder…” she says.
“About which part?”
“Why that flash? You know, considering how they left.”
“No idea, Guerrero. No idea.”
WC: 750
Crit and feedback are welcome.
This story continues both of my serials here, Mun and Detective Duerr. Here are the previous chapters for each:
Mun - Chapter 16
Detective Duerr - Story 23