No, it sucks that I have to keep writing because I'm prolonging my own suffering XD

I don't have the urge to write.
I guess I have to force myself to?

Just look up "motivation compilation" on youtube and set it as your background music.

Clarification: Is it necessary to give your short story a name? I really don't feel like calling it anything, if possible. I mean, at this pt in time.

Quote from Haru

I don't have the urge to write.
I guess I have to force myself to?

fun fact: This problem occurs from not reading enough. Creativity isn't generated from thin air. Reading or just going out and filling yourself with experiences and memories helps a lot with writing.

Write about a dream you had that got out of control and toss a spaceship at that bitch.

*thumbs up*

Alright y'all- 3 days left. We can do this.

There are a couple things I wanna clear up before we shift over to next round, as well as some questions regarding episodics.
Think it was mentioned I was okay with the shuffling. Let's talk about why.

Quote from Hewitt

Whatever happened to "Not everyone is a good writer, Hewitt. We have to give everyone a chance to prepare for all the genres as they come."?

You happened, lol.

Quote from ErrorBlender

Also in that, you, Devour and Richard gave me points I had to consider. Although I'd like to have a good library, this is still a tournament and I can't neglect that part of it.

And that puts me on edge, I'll admit. When this thread opened, it was mostly hypotheticals, ergo 'if ErrorBlender was to give us a list of genres to write, so they could be put on display, with a bit of competition to liven things up- would we be interested in participating?' As the tournament grew, changes were made, and our commitment was tested. Most of those changes have been to the competitive side of things, and what bothered me at first was, well- what if we'd all of a sudden changed over to an elimination bracket? I was absent for a lot of the formation of this, but I'd committed to something that I didn't feel like I could really set the terms to. But, thing with the round shuffling is that I was contacted, I replied, and it got sorted.

Quote from ErrorBlender

Additionally, they already know whats coming. The list of the genres stated will not change. Just their order of appearance. They still have the time to practice the craft of the genre but they just won't know when it'll come.

So here's why I'm okay with this; I know what genres I've tasked myself with stringing together. I made myself a rough layout telling me where each genre story could potentially fall within my continuity, so basically- I'd still be writing a series, but the only difference is... I don't know which book I'm going to write first, and the reader doesn't necessarily know which story "happened" first, until I either explicitly state the order, or casually make reference to something within the story. It's liberating to me in that I don't have to go with the original prescribed order, and that I have to improvise a little bit, while my order- my continuity- still keeps me somewhat grounded.

Quote from Hewitt

You were the one who said that Episodics were not necessary but optional. So, it's not really anyone's fault; they'll just have to learn to adjust to the genres as they come out.

I don't think I'm the you being referred to here, but it applies to me as well in this instance. It's not necessary, it is a challenge, and it's honestly going to make it a good deal harder to compete. But I can adjust, and it's gonna be fine. I've got five perfectly good reasons to stop being a dick about this.

1) Ditching a tournament after committing but just before I'm required to bost is a dick move, and apparently more of a dick move than I'm OK with.
2) I'm not going to get eliminated midway through. I'd hate that.
3) ErrorBlender had a good idea. If we do this, it's going to help out everybody.
4) Freaking ErrorBlender. He's way too nice.
5) Pride.



Cheers.

hen you’ve been gone from your home-planet for many years? Can you guess? A watch, that only works on your home-planet. Completely useless, considering that I’m not going back home for god knows how long. Bet they did this just to spite me, they’re enjoying home while I’m off working off world.

I mean I didn’t have much of a choice in the first place, earth nowadays has become a place only for the super rich or the super poor, my family has managed to find a cozy place somewhere in the middle, but they live in fear that they’re job might not be enough to keep them afloat. Oh my bad, did I say “they’re job”? I meant to say my job; they sent me to this space station so I could work as a SCO just so they can cozily float on the rivers of Earth.

Bah, no use complaining, I willingly volunteered when my parents asked me to, of course I didn’t have much choice considering I was the only one able to work. Mother was pregnant, and the law doesn’t let pregnant people work for some stupid reason. Father had a diseased leg, what the disease was he never told me, suspicious right?

So here I am, stuck in my stall. Naturally, it’s not much of stall; it’s got three walls, no roof, and a bench that is up to my chest. Do I have a chair? No. People with stall duty aren’t given chairs because the higher ups don’t think that it’s worth the money, of course their excuse is that it makes officers lazy. Assholes, am I right?




“Urm exerce me miste?” I hear a slimy voice say, must be an alien, the universal translator can translate words, but that doesn’t always means it works with shit like grammar

Job calls I suppose. I probably shouldn’t get distracted by the watch, don’t want to get fired. I turn around, snapping myself back to reality and taking my elbow from my bench. I’m reminded of how weird aliens here are. Before me I got this weird humanoid octopus, and that’s an understatement. Imagine a bald pink human, but shorter, and with tentacles dangling from the jaw and who’s shining because of that it’s body is covered in slime. That’s basically it.

“Oh sorry, how can I help ma’am?” I hope to hell that is a ma’am, otherwise I won’t hear the end of it from my anti-racism-sexism and whatnot colleges.

“I lik te fiel ah misign preosn.” She replies, her tentacles dangling as her head moves with what she says. Her voice sounds… slobbery somehow, yeash. Guess it was a she, dodged an inevitable bullet there. She seems to be wearing some sort of metal clothing, like armor if you will. I think she’s one of those trade guild people, what was their name again? I know it started with Mae, can’t remember the rest

“Okay, please sign this form then” I can’t imagine how I sound to her right now, since my speech is translated to her language. I take out the file for missing person and put it down on the bench in front of her. She grabs a pen from the pen-can, with her tentacle hand, by the edge of bench and starts writing. Her hand is weird to say the least, imagine a glove for the winter, one of those that has all fingers attached instead of free, and now imagine it pink and with octopus suckers.

Holy shit she writes slow, it’s gone 20 points now, I’m hoping I’m going be able to read what she says, since the paper is covered in slime. Ugh, I hate dealing with octopus races.

She hands me the paper with her right… tentacle-arm. I hesitantly take it, and boy did I wish I had gloves. The slime was sticky, feeling much like some weird organic paste, and it slowly dripped onto my hand as I pulled it closer to read it.

“Peas finds hems!” I look up to reply to her, but she’s already gone. Leaving behind only slime footsteps, which are immediately cleaned by a janitor drone, quickly whooshing by, leaving only the sounds of whirring. Or if you are annoyed by nicknames, Droned Intensive Cleaning Killer. I’d make a sexual euphemism, but I don’t want to ruin the perfectness of the name.




Why does it have killer at the end? That’s because of that the drone is literally made of convicted murderers, sounds grotesque right? You wouldn’t think it was if you only saw it, it looks like a big green square with a large red lidless robot eye.

The body part is inside the drone itself; the fleshy bit is what keep it all together. Since any other material to keep it together costs money, the company that makes the drones, “borrow” the left over bodies of convicts in graveyards. Humans have been fighting against it for god knows how long, but they can’t do anything against the Scrappers. One reason being that any judge and jury are very pragmatic, since there’s a huge benefit to selling these drones and to cleaning the space station. Second being that the Scrapper Congregation owns this station, so they can do what they want.

It’s such a weird galactic law I find, I mean I’ve been out in space for many years but it’s still so foreign to me. The intergalactic council, for whatever reasons, meaning that any race could do whatever the heck they want with their space stations, created the Species Station law. As long as it doesn’t break one rule, murder is not to be allowed on any station. I guess you can be happy that they aren’t okay with outright murder, I suppose.

Oh Jesus, I’ve completely lost track of time, I gotta read this paper and report to the Mother before I’m late. Him and me are already on a very thin line of cooperation, I’d rather not make it worse than it already is.

Seems like a classic case, a missing teen that never came home from education camp, glad the translator kicks in quickly so I can understand what it says. I’m guessing the octopus lady was the mother, since the picture on the paper looks related to her. All aliens looks pretty much identical, with some differences of course, though I bet they think the same for humans. One difference I can spot between the mother and son is their eye color, she has red eyes and he has green eyes, another being that his tentacles seem a bit shorter to hers.

Luckily enough for me, she left a plastic bag of his slime (take how that sounds as you wish), so we can easily identify him when we’re investigating. Seems his sch- I mean education camp, is the one in hub 43. From what I’ve heard, it is a pretty bad school with disgruntled students, oh boy.




I would have continued my current thought if it wasn’t for the violent knocking I suddenly heard, I quickly looked up from the paper, only to see the Mother himself. What a “nice” surprise.

“Oh hi sir, what a pleasure to see you here.” I quickly react, being slightly terrified by how he’s staring right into my eyes with his metal eyes. Oh, did I mention? My boss is a Scrapper; Scrappers are a robotic race that looks like large round metal fluff-balls (If fluff-balls had creepy spikes protruding from their backs, and the metal looked rusted beyond repair), around half the size of a human. They have this strange ability to make just about anything from scraps, hence the name, which is why they are usually seen as scavengers in most stations, other than their own ones naturally.

“Spere teh plasanties, homan.” Well, if I couldn’t tell that he was being serious before, I can now. It seems so strange that he’s so serious, he’s usually very laid back and relaxed, when compared to other Scrappers anyway. He’s grumpy by human standards though. “I hag sumehing to ell yo, is a mesge freem une of teh higer urps.”

“Why didn’t they just sent it to my WCO?” I ask, slightly confused to the reason for the current situations. What could the higher ups ever want from me? This feels awfully conspicuous.

“WCO too public said they, is for your earyes oly.” I assume that’s what he said, kinda hard to hear through the sounds of the mechanical whirring from his body as his makeshift mouth moves with what his words. This is becoming weirder and weirder by the second; I feel a bit nervous inside, which in turn causes my leg to start bouncing up and down.

I guess he noticed this and grunted, reaching inside his robotic body, and taking out a black box like object. I would assume it’s a recording box, not many people use those nowadays. I would joke about him being a hippy or something, but I’m too scared to do that right now.

He doesn’t continue the conversation, he just quickly waddles away from the stall, and I keep staring at him until he turns the corner. I quickly push myself over my bench and start to walk back home, slimy paper and recording box in hand. Since this box was so important, the privacy of my home might be the best to listen to it.




I open the door to my room with my keycard; it silently slides open and closes as I go through. I place the slimy paper in my freezer, so its becomes more solid than jelly of course, and sit down on my sofa. It’s a nice sofa, despite it being so cheap, the rustic color really fits in with the room, since pretty much every building on this station looks like it has never been taken care of.

I place the recording box on my lap, I would have pressed play, if it wasn’t for that I was so stuck I thought. Why? What is it they want with me? It was a terrifying feeling; you know that feeling you get before you present something to a huge amount of people? Imagine it being like that.

Bah, I won’t get anywhere if I just keep thinking, I press the record button slowly, because of dramatic effect. I was always told I was bit of an actor, so it comes naturally to me. The box starts to vibrate as gears start to grind inside.

“Hello Human” The voice sounds metallic, so it must be a Scrapper that’s talking, the strange thing being however that he speaks surprisingly clear. There aren’t many other robotic races on this station. Of course, I’m annoyed at how NO ONE EVER SAYS MY DAMN NAME. I mean come on, I sometimes make an effort to say other alien’s names because I want to be respectful. Why can’t they do the same for me?

“We are contacting you right now, because the station is in grave danger.” Who’d have thought? “As you probably already know, gangs have been taking control of many sectors and hubs and our police force have been unsuccessful in doing so.”

“So I’m assuming you guys want me to do something about it? The hell am I suppos-“

“So we contacted you, we need someone who’s not one of us to help us fight against the current crime wave.” I don’t know why I expected it to answer me; it is a recording box after all.

“Now listen very closely now, you will have received a piece of paper from on of our associates from the Maephelos Traders Guild, he will have disguised it in a missing persons report.” Wait what? I quickly jump out of the sofa and run towards my freezer, pealing it open. I grab the now frozen paper and head towards my sofa, concentrating on the paper and what the message says.

“He told us to tell you to read the first letter in each row, but we have one warning for you before this recording ends. Do not come to the office and try to tell any higher ups about this.” Higher ups? I don’t understand, isn’t this guy a Higher up? He better start to answer questions before this ends.

“Thank you, the Human Republic is relying on you, John.” So wh- wait a minute, did he just say my name? This stuff is just getting weirder and weirder. I mean, crazy things happen on this station at times, like this one time some robotic guy tried to rob me with a burrito. No I’m serious, he thought the burrito was a human handgun. Well, he was unpleasantly surprised when I took a bite out of his “gun” and took out my cuffs with my right hand and my TRD in my left. He knew he was sorta kinda actually screwed so he didn’t resist.

Okay, since the recorder guy thanked me so nicely, I’ll do as he says. Lesse see here, hopefully I’ll be able to properly make out the words, but conveniently, the handwriting isn’t wacky and such. H…U…B…F…O…U…R. Okay, Hub four is pretty close, hopefully the paper specifies the sector too while its at it. S…E…C…T…O…R…S…E…V…E…N…T…E…E…N. Ask and you shall receive I suppose. But wait, there’s more! P…O…R…T…T…W…O. Oh boy, better get there now.




It’s only now when I’m trying to get a ride to Hub four that I realize that I have no clue about what I’m supposed to do when I get there. Nine cogs on that “I’ll find out when I’ll get there.” This is starting to sound more and more like a stereotypical and cheesy person becomes a hero story, and I’m in it.

I snap out of my thoughts at the sound of a hover window opening, to see a hover rider right in front of me, I crouch so I can see inside. Oh boy, it’s a Scrapper as a driver, he’s probably going to attempt to milk me of any of my cogs, and probably a bit more than I have.

“Were te ser?” It asks to me merrily, I assume it has a smile, I can’t quite tell however.

“Are you able to take me to hub four, sector seventeen, port two my good friend?” God I hope he just says yes, some of these drivers are so picky with who they drive, excuses like “Don’t know way”, the assholes just want to get as much cogs as possible. Of course you can’t blame them, they’re just trying to make sure they have enough cogs to get through the day. Gear cleaners are progressively getting more expensive. Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.

“Sere I take yo, hup in.” It answers me enthusiastically, opening the door closes to me with the press of a button by the steering holes. Sound funny, it is pretty funny. The driver just sticks their hands into two glowing holes and it allows him/her/it/other to move and turn the car. I’m told it’s fairly easy, though I have never felt compelled to try to learn how to use it.

I sit down on the seat, the door slides closed as I put my last leg in. The seat is surprisingly comfy; most tend to be hard like a rock, and as spiky as one too. Guess this guy understands that just because his race doesn’t care for nice seats, doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t too. I think I already like him.

The engine starts to vroom softly, in contrast to the loud sounds of the outside of the hover. Of course, that sound disappears as the window slides shut, and before I could say “Let’s go”, the hover enters Hub travel speed.

I would have talked about the trip more, if I hadn’t fallen asleep. I got extremely tired for some reason, must have been the extreme time zone changing. The driver was reasonable, I paid him 20 cogs for the trip and I exited the hover, god I wish I had more taxis like this.

Aaah, feels nice to stand again, just need to stretch out my bac- aaah, that’s the stuff. I swear that it feels better the more your back cracks. I open up my slightly tired eyes only for me to have a surprise. There was literally a big mech guy right up in my face, I couldn’t help but fall to the ground in reply to this sudden appearance. What’s creepier is that I didn’t hear it approach, it must be very light on its feet, which is strange considering how it’s like twice my size.

“Are you the SCO named John?” It asks me robotically, staring deep into my eyes with three blue shining eyes, centered on a ruby head. It doesn’t look like a security mech, it doesn’t have any visible weapons and the like.

It’s painted with

Quote from Chromium7

I've got five perfectly good reasons to stop being a dick about this.

That's really swell bro. Now just stop being a dick everytime and we'll be cool

Why's he taking this so seriously? Like even if there are steam key prizes it's not like it matters. The points to improve as a writer more than to beat your opponent (although victory does taste sweet.). It's for fun. Like why complain about it? Who gives a shit. It's an internet forum writing tourney. Simply a game.

We are nearing the deadline folks.

Please submit your works soon. :D

Is ti one day left or two? I have a 2 formals in a row i need to attend at night.

Quote from Cruel

Why's he taking this so seriously? Like even if there are steam key prizes it's not like it matters. The points to improve as a writer more than to beat your opponent (although victory does taste sweet.). It's for fun. Like why complain about it? Who gives a shit. It's an internet forum writing tourney. Simply a game.

Some people take things too seriously. You take women seriously. I take games seriously. Chrome takes writing seriously.

For those in my timezone, GMT+8, it would be tomorrow [November 14].

Since I never asked for your timezones (which is my bad), I can give a day more. Next round, I need to ask your timezones to set the deadlines well.

Not too sure of my time zone, but its the 12th here soooo