Writing General: 'Christmas' edition.Welcome to /wg/, the thread for all /tg/ related writing. Whether you're plotting your campaign, trying to come up with a character backstory, or just trying to write some setting fluff, this is the place to post it. You don't even have a campaign, just an idea you want to develop? You're welcome here. While the rest of /tg/ is arguing over monstergirl mating and which way rivers are supposed to flow, we're here to help you turn your thoughts into an actual finished product.As the successor to the Storythreads, we're also open to /tg/ related fanfiction (D&D, Warhammer, Battletech, whatever). In fact, if you've written any vaguely /tg/-related short stories, you can try them out here. We also have flash-fiction challenges from time to time.There's a discord for writers herehttps://discord.gg/6AwKHGFThe previous thread can still be found in the archive here>>94504229And finally an archive of /tg/ fiction can be found here:http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Storythread (dead link, but may be resurrected one day)https://2d4chan.org/wiki/Storythreadhttps://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Storythread
Thread theme self-explanatory: Christmas is coming, post Christmas stuff. Hopefully I'll have time to write a Christmas story myself, in the meantime I'll post stuff from yesteryear (pic related)
>>94602243cute :D
I finally started writing again after taking an unintentional hiatus for a few months.Man I forgot how to write dialogue for shit. And doubly lucky for me im at a big dialogue heavy section with like 6+ characters in one scene.
>>94606563It's so difficult to start writing again after not doing it for a while. Really is best to try and write a bit every day, even if it's not very good. Although I can't claim to practice what I preach on that score.
>>94606691I was lucky i did "write" but I was mainly writing smut for money instead of stuff I want. This is back to me writing what I want to and enjoy.
>>94606563It's always good to actually speak dialogue out loud and hear how it sounds. It's something Lucas would never do when writing a script, and it wasn't until Guinness actually made Lucas hear him deliver Obi Wan's original lines that he was able to convince Lucas that they needed to be changed.Mark Hamill encountered the same problem, but he didn't have the same respect that Guinness commanded, so it was much harder to get Luke's lines changed. But, Mark did at least get one changed.https://youtu.be/rihbi2U7tNg?si=Zla-vBZEZd5xrVGi
>>94606704I still don't get who pays for smut. I mean, surely AO3 alone has more smut than anyone could read in a lifetime for any fetish anyone could possibly have. Especially with AI now you'd have thought people could just write their own.
>>94609321AI is completely useless for smut
>>94609321Its all about the niche brother. Sure ao3 might have all the porn in the world but it doesnt have diddle dick about that one really cute character in that one anime no one watched getting gangbanged by 7 horses does it?
>>94611407I guess I think of ao3 as a smut singularity that has become so dense with smut it's collapsed in on itself and become infinitely lewd, with all possible fetishes existing in the same space simultaneously. But maybe I lack imagination when it comes to the range of fetishes it's possible to have.Also, how do your clients even find you? I can't imagine reading a non-smut story and messaging the author like: 'hey, I enjoyed your Girls and Panzer fanfic, could you write me another one... but with futa?'>>94609343I'll admit, I haven't tried it. I assumed that AI writing was at least good enough to jack off to. But maybe I'm doing smut writers a disservice.
>>94613793They dont find me, I just have a couple people on discord that know I write stuff, and theyve asked me to write smut for them. Which I have.
>>94606704...Care to share where/how you were writing smut for money? I've got a project I'm working on now that I could use some cash on the side for while I'm working on the main project.
Hey /wg/, I'm looking for a name for an encyclopedia which holds all of the knowledge of an alliance of alien species, including technical knowledge on how to rebuild civilization from the stone age all the way to the stardrive.My first idea was to call it "Aleph", as a reference to Borges. But... I don't know...
>>94614732I just have a small group of people on discord I know that want smut from a decently niche anime fandom with your more atypical lewd stuff. Nothing wild or nasty just a bit more out there than vanilla.
>>94615874Omnipedia? Not terribly creative I know, but it's the best I could come up with.
>>94615874The name of such a grand encyclopedia is different according to the alien species. Some refer to it as the Googlact. For some, the Archives. Still for others, the Kua'picelpiec.But the humans — ah the humans, those barbarous enemies of all reason — lovingly refer to it as the Reposhitory.
>>94624390
>Just spend almost 2 pages describing the layout of a roomI mean, its a pretty big room with important stuff in it, and I tried doing it in such a way where its like, the character walking through it waiting for all the other characters to show up, but im just wondering if maybe its a bit much.
>>94634179>everyone who runs is naughty>everyone who stays still is well disciplined naughty
>>94635647Love stuff like this, but my tastes can also be very old-fashioned. It needs to justify itself, at the very least by being very good and not exhaustive to read.
>>94637266I think I did a decent job. Like I said its not just "theres a chair there and another chair there"Its moreso following the eyes of the character as they arrive after not being here for a long time. I describe the room size as they enter, then I take it apart section by section, following our pov character as they inspect the documents strewn about on the desks or think about memories they've shared (for example there's a demon imprisonment/banishing circle in this room and they steer very clear of it, remembering when they got trapped for a whole night in it (they're part demon))
>>94635647>>94638594It depends on how important the room is. If the description contains information that's important to the plot, or if the room as a whole is important and focusing the reader's attention on it serves the story, then a description like that is justifiable. It's when an author gets very wordy about a room or a landscape or some other piece of background just because they want to 'paint a picture' that it gets tedious. Sure, you should definitely be trying to make your descriptions interesting, but it should serve the story.
>Red scaled fishman named Hed Redding How suspicious is this name? He's a red herring so I need him to be as suspicious as possible.
>>94640292extremely sus
>>94638897Well its definitely an important room that's been foreshadowed quite a bit in previous chapters. Its the "main headquarters" of the hunters in this city, where all the politicking and missions are taking place. Its also important cause this is where everyone important is gathering to report the latest missions, as well as the guests that bring the "plot relevant" information. This is the last time we see the city in general, as everyone is gonna split off and go do other stuff.
>>94590771sounds cool
Trying to come up with a backstory to a nation in my setting, and I'm in a bit of a writer's block. What do you lads do to get out of a writer's block?
>>94652569Just write any old shit, then when I look back at it and think 'that sucks', I'll also think about why it sucks, and what would be better.
>>94652569steal someone elses idea
>>94590771Repost the snowman stories.
>>94655562done and done>>94624390>>94624398>>94650243
>>94656882Thanks. Also, happy Christmas and holidays, Chronicler and anons!.
>>94657254Thank you anon. Merry Christmas to you too, and to every other anon!
>>94590771What are some good guidelines for writing Christmas-themed stories? And besides picture related and Elves, what are some potential race ideas for such story settings, or places to look for ideas on races besides the more typical ones?
>>94665462All I can say is that Charles Dickens wrote the perfect supernatural Christmas story in 1843, and everything after that has just been playing catch-up.
>>94686368I thought this was a low poly beef santa from the thumbnail
And now, continuing a long tradition of missing Christmas by several days, I present to you: my Christmas story for this year.
Did anyone make a New Year's resolution to write more in 2024? If so, how did it go?
>>94692785Nice.
Crossover story I would love to see.
>>94702295Thanks. Hopefully next year I'll finish a story in time for Christmas... maybe I should get working on that now.
>>94704308Well, you have a whole year for it. Also, happy new year.
>>94704585Happy New Year to you too, anon!And to every other anon as well. Let's hope things get slightly less shit in 2025.
MINDLESS WRITING EXERCISECatch-22 verse edition"Bad Medicine"...Another year came and went at Purgus Apartments, and the residents had decked their units in Christmas trappings that still hung past the start of the new year, a lingering reminder of a cheerful holiday.There were a few exceptions- some were of a different faith that didn't celebrate Christmas, and for others, the holiday was either not a happy event or just another day on the calendar.William Catch, 20 and single, could fall into either of the last two categories depending on how the year had gone. He exchanged a few gifts with his neighbors with as much of a smile he could manage and made a cursory appearance at the unit party to keep up appearances, but the idea of celebrating Christmas had, until very recently, been a foreign idea.Stuart and Karen Catch, God damn their souls, were die-hard Condemnationists, just shy of being actual Breakers. To them, Jesus was a rebellious son who tried to save the unworthy- that is, anyone not a Condemnationist- and thus his birthday was meant for mourning and telling everyone they were going to hell, there was nothing they could do about it, and that they should praise the Condemnationists until their death and damnation.Needless to say, they were not popular people, and after years of physical, verbal, and psychological abuse, William sympathized with their detractors.He sighed as a cold, dreary rain fell, mixing with the melted snow and creating road conditions that were best described as 'fuck that shit'. He should be happy.It had been September when a 'friend' had confirmed what he suspected- that Stuart and Karen were not his biological parents- and that had finally spurred him to do what he had meant to do for so many years and kill the two people that motivated him into becoming the 'problem solver' he was today.He had tracked them to a remote house, where they were beating a poor little girl within an inch of her life.
>>94708918That had complicated things slightly, but he had sedated both of them with a very expensive tranq pistol before calling an ambulance discretely from a disposable phone, loaded his 'parents' into the truck he'd procured, stayed just long enough to ensure the girl was stable and to see the ambulance arrive to pick her up, then hightailed it to the safe-house he'd prepared.The ensuing Q&A session with the two had been cathartic, at least. Somewhere after losing a testicle but before the power drill, Stuart had revealed that abducting the girl was their hobby- they weren't devoted enough to be true Breakers, but the idea of hurting someone that couldn't fight back was a joy they both shared. It had taken a little more convincing to reveal that William too was their attempt to challenge themselves by driving a child to suicide- and that they'd abducted him when he was about four at Disneyworld.William prided himself on quick and clean kills, but in this instance he spent an inordinate amount of time expressing his displeasure with how he'd been treated over the years and their choice of recreational activities. Sadly, their responses to what he felt were valid points consisted mostly of screaming. A generous amount of homemade napalm later to destroy any traces of his presence, he used the same disposable phone to inform authorities where to find the remains of the two sadistic kidnappers that they had begun a nationwide manhunt for two days ago.The news was abuzz for a longtime about the mysterious savior who rescued Chelsie, her grateful parents, and the numerous kidnappings attributed to the Catches. Admittedly, even though the job required massive expenses on his part and involved calling in multiple favors, it had been one of the more satisfying ones. The joy had faded, however, as Catch mused about his situation, his future, and how his real family. The last part wasn't too hard.He lived next door to them, after all.
>>94708991Peter and Natalie Walker were still together even after their child went missing, and when he had been invited into their apartment his breath had caught when he saw the candles lit next to a picture.A boy, four years old, laughing and wearing a Mickey Mouse hat, holding hands with his parents at Disneyworld. The last photo they had of him.They had believed the tears to be solely born of sympathy, unaware their son was standing before them, mourning what he had lost.It had taken a while for them to open up about their son's abduction to Oliver Burns- his current and hopefully permanent alias. How he had been right next to them. The letter they got at home, decrying their son as a 'sinner' who would be sent to hell where he belonged. How they had spent years looking at surveillance camera footage, praying for an FBI agent or a cop to call. How they both fell and then climbed out of the bottle together. How they had found support among parents who had lost their children as well. Peter had explained, having to pause several times for a drink of water, that when the Catches had finally been found smoldering, their last house raided of the numerous trophies they'd taken over the years, and among them had been a single Mickey Mouse hat- they knew that their son was gone. But he at least had been avenged."I just hope he knew... at the end... that we didn't stop fighting." Natalie had said, wiping her eyes.It took all the willpower he had to prevent himself from hugging her then and there, telling them both that not only had their son survived, but he hunted down the bastard and bitch and made them pay dearly for what they'd cost so many families.But that was not an option. Not anymore.
>>94709047How could he ever explain that the fourteen long years of constant abuse and attempts to make him kill himself had turned him into a merchant of vengeance? Even if he could bring himself to lie to them, how could he craft a stable enough story to explain his survival up to this point? Would they even believe him? Would they accept him?So he sat with them on their worst nights, and agreed wholeheartedly that the Catches had got what was coming to them, and that somewhere William was looking down on them, smiling and free of pain.It helped a little. But he needed a distraction, and the rent wasn't exactly cheap.It was then that he got a request through the network.The job concerned one Trey Betcher, a diagnostician for St. Norman's hospital in New York.William had a very specific set of standards for who he took hits on, criteria that others in the network deemed self-righteous or insane: The target had to have genuinely and severely harmed someone, deliberately and without remorse.The target had to be a threat to others.The target could not be a proxy, like a loved one or child.The client had to have proof that the target was all the above.He'd rejected a number of jobs for various reasons, usually because the target in question was a cog in a system and had no real power to do the harm that the client was angry about, the offense was some petty slight that the client wanted avenged exponentially, or the target was already punished by the system and in jail. The long and short of it was that many of the targets that someone wanted dead were mostly decent people who either made a mistake or were in the wrong place at the wrong time.Reading over the file revealed that Betcher was neither of the two.He made flight plans to New York.
>>94709162The chief complaint against Betcher was that he was an abusive asshole who had made multiple critical misdiagnoses that resulted in death, driven several medical interns to suicide, then hid behind his daddy's lawyers whenever legal repercussions reared their head. On paper, it sounded like quite the laundry-list of accusations, but accusations were just that- anyone could make them against anyone. One of the complaints was that he had fired a nurse for questioning his orders regarding medication. It took some digging, but he'd found the nurse had taken a job at a coffee shop shortly after, likely to make ends meet.Lora Jerkins- the nurse allegedly fired- was the current barista, hastily taking and making orders, perspiration visible on her chocolate skin even with the cold as she tried to sort who ordered what and when. At a glance, she seemed to have it somewhat under control, despite needing to ask a beleaguered manager how to do certain register functions. He was there, waiting in line to approach her, make an order and casually ask what had happened under the guise of being a sympathetic bystander......then he was shoved to the side, and after catching his balance, his thoughts briefly shifted to how to cripple the offender and make it look like an accident, when he blinked, disbelieving what he saw.Barging to the front of the line was none other than Dr. Trey Betcher himself. Tall, lanky, five o' clock shadow, greying blonde short hair..."So this is what you're doing, now, huh?" he asked loudly as he shoved a woman aside, Lora's eyes widening in recognition as he approached. "Putting that nursing degree to good use?!""D-Dr. Betcher, please-""Please what, bitch? 'Please don't tell everyone how I nearly killed someone'? 'Please don't tell everyone here I CAN'T TAKE FUCKING ORDERS'?" He screeched.Had he followed her here just to antagonize her after firing her? The request mentioned anger issues, but this was beyond the pale...
>>94709247"Dr. Betcher, could we do this some other-""Ohhhhhhhhh no, you think you can question me and walk away? You think-" and now Betcher swept his arms, knocking a rack of napkins, creamer, and sugar to the floor. "-you can come to *my* hospital and tell me HOW TO DO MY JOB!?""Lora, go to the back, help with the restocking." the portly manager said, stepping in to try and defuse the fracas. "Sir, I don't know what your issue is with my employee-""Oh no!" Betcher snarled, lunging out to grab Lora by her apron as she walked away. "YOU ARE NOT WALKING AWAY FROM ME THIS TIME!" he shouted, hammering her with his free fist, prompting other customers to rush and grab him as he pummeled Lora, others recording the melee on their phone.Lora eventually broke free as her apron tore, and Betcher flailed at those restraining him. "GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME, GOD DAMN YOU!" he bellowed, backhanding one man in the face, then stomping on him as he fell, aiming for his head...William reached for his belt buckle to retrieve the hidden push dagger. Screw the job- this psychopath was going to kill someone...Another woman landed a powerful right to his jaw and he staggered, ceasing his attack. "You goddamned pieces of shit... do you have ANY idea who I am?" He turned to Lora, shielded by the manager, both looking appalled and horrified at Betcher's rampage. "You and I aren't done, whore! You hear me! Not by a fucking longshot!"He barged out of the coffee shop, deliberately shoving a mother holding her infant to the ground as he exited, and as others rushed to his victims' aid, William made up his mind.Betcher wasn't as bad as the request made him out to be- he was *worse*.That settled the 'should he' of the contract. All that was left was the 'how'.
>>94708918Always good too see you, dude. Happy new year.>>94708918>Somewhere after losing a testicle but before the power drill>William prided himself on quick and clean kills, but in this instance he spent an inordinate amount of time expressing his displeasure Well it's good to know you're in a festive mood.
What went wrong?
>>94713824TikTok. I don't know what you're referring to, but the answer is probably TikTok.
Tailing Betcher wasn't too difficult- the man seemed to lack any awareness, not even showing concern that the police might be looking for him after such an egregious display of entitlement and violence. Either the man was confident in his father's ability to deal with any legal repercussions, or he really was that self-absorbed...His curiosity was piqued when the none-too-good doctor made a detour into the darker part of the city, and only now did Betcher seem to exercise any caution at all, forcing William to be increasingly more discrete.Irrational rage. A detour to a part of town no respectable doctor had business being in. The pieces were coming together.His suspicions were confirmed when he witnessed the doctor hand a thick wad of bills to a man in a hood wearing sunglasses- a small bag handed off in exchange.That could explain the misdiagnoses and the outbursts, at least partially.As he watched Betcher walk away from the deal, the 'how' began to piece itself together...(To be continued...)
>>94712296>Well it's good to know you're in a festive mood.Ahem>>94692785>The massacre had happened some time ago. The flesh had rotted from the bones and the bones had been half-buried by the forest.
>>94712296Oh, you know me- I'm a syringe full of festive cheer injected with great force into your jugular vein. At 3 am. By a mental asylum escapee wearing a Santa costume.
>>94715099One thought that came immediately to William was to break into Betcher's apartment and taint his stash. That was stupid and suicidal- if he had home surveillance, it would start a manhunt, and that would complicate things at best. The best way to deal with a hit such as this- in which a client didn't care about pain and suffering, but simply wanted the target *dead*- was to do the job in such a way that it looked like an accident or personal incompetence. Moreover, Betcher was an asshole, and William despised assholes. A bullet in the head would martyr him. Being found dead from a drug overdose would defame him.That would be the way to do it, he decided as he walked along the sidewalk back to his hotel. Mix a lethal dose of fentanyl into his coke, wait for the results, job done-*wump*"Oh, sorry-" he muttered as he bumped into someone......then that someone grabbed him and pushed him against the wall of a store, and William was staring into the eyes of a cop who was clearly having a bad day."You wanna start something pal?" the cop, thinning brown hair and crushed nose flaring, reached for his pistol. "Cuz' I'm more than willing to finish it-"Well, shit. This was how he was gonna die. To some asshole cop with anger issues."Whoa whoa whoa, I'm sorry officer, I-"He searched desperately for an excuse..."...I'm just a tourist, I was taking in the sights, didn't see you."The cop's grip on his pistol kept it in his holster, but didn't leave. He saw the officer's eyes flick left and right, noticing a crowd looking at him. William noticed the officer's name- Nelson."...get outta here, and walk where the fuck you're going." Nelson snarled, stomping off.The man was clearly pissed off and looking for an excuse to shoot someone, and if he hadn't had a crowd, William would be dead- there was no question of that. Fury bloomed inside him at the blatant injustice that this asshole was so willing to pull a gun on him over a minor bump.........
>>94717856A dark inspiration hit him, and he stopped into a pizza parlor to mull over the idea...Oh. *Oh.*This, he decided as he made a quick lunch of a coke and large slice of pepperoni and mushroom, would be very satisfying for both him and the client....Officer Fredrick Nelson was not having a good day. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he had a good day while on the job.His wife was pleading for him to find something else- anything else- because the weight of dealing with scum, angry bosses, and insane quotas was getting to him. He tried to never take it out on his family, only the perps, but at 42 with promotions being dangled and then yanked away, he was getting more and more irritable.Having Christmas and New Year's vacation plans canceled hadn't helped his mood.He had barely sat down to file some paperwork when his personal cell phone rang. A phone number he didn't recognize."Who is this?" he asked irritably as he started going over some tickets."Officer Nelson. I'm contacting you discretely because this info might get lost." a distorted voice answered. "There is a doctor, Trey Betcher, who is regularly abusing cocaine and is becoming more and more unstable at work due to his addiction."Betcher. He'd heard that name before on the news about some lawsuit. "Wait, wait, who is this? How did you get this information?""Just today he assaulted a nurse he recently fired, stalking her at her new job as a barista. His drug problem is costing people their lives at his job. If you don't believe me, check the 'net or ask about the calls to the police this morning. The man is unstable and getting worse. Be wary, I think he's armed and expecting a raid any day now.""Who is this?" Nelson demanded."Just call me a friend. You'll want to move soon, Officer, before his incompetence kills more people." The line went dead.Nelson considered this information for a moment, then rose from his desk, walking to his chief's office...
>>94717937The package had no return address, which alone was concerning.Then Betcher opened it to find the small semi-auto pistol, and a note."THERE'S A HIT OUT ON YOU. THEY WILL BE DRESSED LIKE POLICE. PROTECT YOURSELF.-A FRIEND"Oh shit. *Oh shit.*He'd finally done it. Dad had warned him one day he'd piss off the wrong person, and that his legal team couldn't help him. The last three lines of cocaine lay forgotten on the table as he processed this information. Was it a prank? Maybe someone was just fucking with him...He opened the magazine. Real bullets. Oh god...Several loud bangs on his apartment door made him jolt. "Mr. Betcher, police! Open up, we have a warrant!"FUCK!Chambering a round, he hid behind his sofa. "I KNOW WHO YOU FUCKS ARE!" he screamed. "I'M ARMED! I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU!"...Nelson suddenly was *very* grateful he was wearing his vest. Shit- that info had been on point. This guy was a nutcase..."Break it down." his senior ordered.The SWAT officer obligingly slammed the battering ram into the door, and it began to splinter, then flung open.Out from behind a leather sofa sprang a man, nose dripping blood, brandishing a pistol. "I SAID I'LL KILL-""GUN!" Nelson reacted two officers and the first SWAT member. A hail of bullets tore into the man, making him stagger, fall as crimson blossoms began to spread across his body.Two seconds later, the same SWAT member moved in, removed the gun from his hand, knelt over Betcher. "He's gone."Well, damn.They didn't have to look far for proof of drug abuse- the lines of coke still on the table. The empty baggies in the trash.Looking on the wall, Nelson spied a medical degree, and sighed as he shook his head.How the hell could someone like that go so wrong?..."It couldn't fire?" he asked the forensics officer.Sergio shrugged. "The firing pin had been clipped and the bullets were all duds. Serial number's gone, too. Maybe he got it from the same guy who was his dealer."
>>94718098Nelson considered the note they found. It would have been too big a risk for his dealer to give him a gun- but the note implied that someone had a hit out on Betcher.Frowning, Nelson considered what had happened- he got a call directly informing him about this guy, then the perp gets a faulty pistol and a warning the police were disguised hitman in the same day? The whole thing reeked of a setup.He'd overheard some of the scraps from interviewing Betcher's coworkers- he had always been mean, but recently had gotten exponentially more and more unpredictable, unreliable and unstable. They had interviewed Lola, the nurse he had fired (and who the hospital was looking to rehire after the fracas), and she confirmed that he had tried to prescribe penicillin to a patient who was deathly allergic, then went ballistic when she tried to explain why she wasn't going to administer lethal medicine...Someone wanted Betcher dead, so they sent him a useless gun, a fake tip to make him paranoid, and called the police to do their dirty work.Unbeknownst to him, that same someone was already on a flight out of New York....The internet and news had all the gory details.Trey Betcher, disgraced diagnostician, had been shot during a warranted search on his apartment after drawing a gun on an officer. They'd found multiple signs of his cocaine abuse, and now St. Normans was issuing a denunciation of Betcher and statement. Lola Jerkins apparently had been offered her job back. Several doctors and patients were coming forward to make statements about Betcher's instability.William got his pay with compliments.Now, 'Oliver Burns' sat in his apartment, watching the news.
>>94718281"...more information on the horrific case of the Catch kidnappings. An estimated thirteen victims have been attributed to Stuart and Karen Catch, who investigators say kidnapped, tortured and executed their victims in accordance with Breaker terrorist teachings. Apologists for the Condemnation Church have called the Catches 'valiant crusaders against sin and debauchery'..."*Click*.The Catches were dead. Chelsie was at home and recovering. That, he told himself, was as good an ending as he could ask for to this nightmare.Maybe the time would be right one day to go over and explain everything he could to the Walkers. Maybe that time would never come.William Ca- *Walker*- made peace with that.The job paid well enough- the reward pooled from several families- that he didn't need to worry about rent or expenses. Oliver Burns could claim to be a remote work-from-home drone and go about his business."You know, it is rather cruel to keep them in the dark." came a voice from behind him.The door was locked. His apartment had been empty except for him. The alarms on his windows and door- keyed to his phone which was in his hand, had not gone off. Someone had disabled them or bypassed them. Whoever was behind him was a pro.Dammit. There was always someone better.A tense moment passed as he considered his next moves."Don't bother with the gun under the couch. I'm not here to kill you." the voice spoke again. Middle aged male. Caucasian? Confident. Knew about the gun he hid. Dammit."Then what do you want?" William asked, turning to see the intruder.
>>94590771I just finished up the second chapter of the fantasy story I’m writing about a Necromancer’s apprentice, if any of you gents are interested.Chapter 1https://pastebin.com/mF0J1p4JChapter 2https://pastebin.com/V50DuK3iAlso available to read on A03, Wattpad, etclinktree/BornUnderaBlackSunPicrel, some art I commissioned of one of the story’s chimeras. A cross between an alligator and a vultureSo me of you might have read chapter 1 way back, I made some minor changes to the prose
>>94718532"We've been watching you, Mr. Catch. Or should I say Mr. Walker?" the man had greying brown hair, a neatly trimmed goatee. Slightly pudgy. Brown trenchcoat. Not what he expected. How had he got in here...?"Who's 'we'? How do you know about that?" he asked, waiting for a sudden pull of a pistol or knife. None came."We thought initially you were dead, another victim of the Catch kidnappings. Then you started taking care of mun- er, problems that we had marked for resolution. A bit disconcerting for our agents to track down a child trafficker and find out they're already dead, you see. Then we finally tracked down the Catches, only to find that the police were identifying them by dental records." the man continued. "Chelsie's father wants to shake your hand, by the way. He had... plans for the Catches, but if the forensic reports were correct, you didn't make it quick for them."Torture was largely ineffective for getting valid information, and William knew it. Eventually, put someone in enough pain, and they'd confess to anything or tell their torturer whatever they wanted to hear. It *had* been cathartic, however, to see the man who had flogged him bloody with a belt slowly understand just how the catheter and sulfuric acid would be used, and the consequent transformation from his calm sneers and taunts to frantic begging and screams. "You'd be slightly bitter too if you were yanked away from a loving family so two sadists could see if they could drive you to suicide." William countered.The man made a face of disgust. "Is that why they kept you... longer than the others?""So I was told." William said with a shrug."Jesus." exclaimed the man, shaking his head.William kept wary of this uninvited guest. "You still haven't mentioned who 'we' is."
>>94721910"...that... would be difficult to explain... and more difficult for you to believe... I suppose the easiest way of putting it is that we operate on a level beyond what you've ever seen. My organization specifically deals with threats to innocents and the world at large, abuses of... power, shall we say.""And you want to make me a job offer?" William asked. "There's a network for that-""Mr. Walker, we both know the network isn't for you." The man cut him off. "You claim to be a hitman, but you have too many standards. You prefer your prey to deserve their death, to warrant your talents. You've done pro bono work just to retrieve kidnapping victims. The only reason you charge such amounts is to fund your operations. And even now, your life is killing you. Steadily. Slowly. You spend one day every other week with a gun on the table and a blank piece of paper, getting about two lines written before giving up on the suicide note. You've gone through thirteen different permanent aliases. You socialize just enough to make people a little less wary of you, and the rest of your time is spent either waiting for a request that suits your *very* narrow standards or deciding whether or not you've had enough."He'd been watching."Join us, and we will guide you to the jobs that will leave you with a clean conscience. Maybe one day, you can tell your parents who you are and not be ashamed."William Walker considered his current state of affairs. Wallowing in self-misery, interrupted by throwing himself into danger, hoping either the brief endorphin burst of saving an innocent or killing an asshole would stave off the despair for one more night......and like a drug, each hit had a little less effect."Let's say I want in." William proposed. "What does that entail?"The man smiled. "You have one week from today to make arrangements, tell people you are going on a vacation. Then we will come for you."
>>94721947The man brought his hands together, left over right and cupped, then moved them in a infinity symbol to alter their positions, pulled them apart, and clapped. "ELETTROP ABES RAUQSRET!"What the hell? What this some sort of cult farewell-Then he faded from view.William blinked, expecting the man to reappear. In a mad panic, he searched his apartment for any sign of him, a projector for a hologram, and in a moment of absurdism, under the couch.William believed in reality being reality, a set of rules that was laid in stone. There might be *something* afterwards, a prospect that at times was either hopeful or fearful, but reality was what it was. Things happened for a logical reason.Now a man had just poofed out of existence.Crazy. That had to be it. After so many hits pretending he was some righteous vigilante/hitman, he'd finally *snapped*, and now he was having a fatherly old man in his living room telling him things he already knew and then popping out of reality.His phone buzzed with an incoming message.
>>94721988"Dear Oliver Burns,Your shuttle to the airport will arrive on February 12th at 11:00 A.M. Please be prepared to depart at this time as a courtesy to other shuttle users.You are highly advised to keep the meeting with our representative confidential, as disclosure to other persons will result in voiding of the career opportunity."That was one week from now.He looked from his phone to where the man had stood, then back to his phone again several times, finally able to summarize his feelings on the series of events."...what the *fuck*?"FIN
>>94719422>A cross between an alligator and a vultureIsn't 'a cross between a reptile and a bird' another way of describing dinosaurs?
>>94722006Nice story, although for the swatting I'd have though it would be easier to leave a note with a phone number to call rather than tip the cops off that it was a set up. Betcher calls, and William uses a voice changer and says something along the lines of:>I work for your father's legal team. The off-the-books side. Someone's put a hit out on you. Professionals, track record of success; they'll come dressed as cops. We're working on a solution but if we don't get our security team together in time, the gun is loaded and ready. Make sure the safety's off and don't hesitate, they *will* kill you.In fact, I'd clone a burner phone from a drug dealer so that when the cops trace the number they find it's made calls to other known addicts. Much neater.>>94717485Fair point. Sometimes this feels more like a group therapy session than a writing thread (although then again you could say that about a lot of literary figures).
>>94724289I suppose so, I made it more with the idea of dragons in mind
How do I write action for parties of 4+ people? That's the standard for many RPGs, but having that many seems to slow my pacing terribly.
>>94726257Shit, that would be better.I suppose it might come as a relief to some people that I don't know how to pull off a successful assassination, however.
WE DEMAND YOU ONLY WRITE IN 3RD PERSON OMNISSIAH
>>94734389Write in fourth person.
>>94734389>>94738184Write in tongues
