This is from a Hearts of Iron mod I've written for, specifically the TNO submod Operation Deep Freeze. Specifically, it happens in the Golden Ending for a certain military conflict, with a soldier's wife worrying about her husband (it turns out the husband is ok).
I tend to build my stories in short passages and then splice them into a proper story. Here is one from one such project that stuck with me for its atmosphere.
Edited by Morgisboard on Jun 10th 2023 at 12:54:26 PM
The World's Least Powerful Man
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
"I tend to build my stories in short passages and then splice them into a proper story."
Hey! Same hat!
Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
"She complained when he'd brought breakfast up to her, because she'd wanted to make it herself. Apparently, he didn't do it right. He wasn't really sure what she meant by that. All they really had was a box of brandless cereal they'd picked up from a pantry, and half a jug of milk. Unless she'd wanted him to commit some big cereal sin — pouring the milk into the bowl first, perhaps, or pouring the milk directly into the cereal box — he was pretty sure she was just complaining to vent. Despite his frustration, he couldn't blame her. This whole thing must have been hard for her, and if she wanted to whine about cereal making techniques, he supposed she had the right to."
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 13th 2023 at 9:21:24 AM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
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"Félix shook his head and knelt down to Camilo’s level. “Listen, if there’s something wrong, you need to tell someone immediately, and I’ll deal with Abuela and your mother. You don’t have to suffer to make others happy."
Taken from Reflections in a Cloudy Sky
Number 1 CGI Fireman Sam defender
Sanity not included
"You mean 'unethical.'"
"No, immoral. I don't deal in ethics; ethics are what assholes like you use to soothe their conscience when they realize a moral framework is incapable of supporting their depravity."
Edited by Dragon573 on Jul 3rd 2023 at 6:20:42 AM
It's kind of funny. Sufficiently advanced stupidity is like sufficiently advanced science; eventually, you find something you can't solve.
The World's Least Powerful Man
"You have the heart of a cockroach and the soul of a dog turd."
Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!
Unconventional Crossover Enthusiast
This is a moment from The Chaos Zone (the roleplay itself uses video game-like mugshots, but to make it simpler for this thread I just marked which character's speaking or emoting).
Context: This is an action scene, where three characters (one of whom, Terumi, is just a (ghost) child, so the other two don't actually force her to fight) are up against a swarm of airships, having stolen one for themselves to approach the leader's ship before this exchange:
Terumi: *huff* *huff*
Yuugen-V hurriedly lifts Terumi on her shoulders, throwing off the focus of one of the Air Strollers with a well-timed Shoot to its mechanical eye!
Terumi: I'm sorry, Ms. Yuugen...I wanted to help for longer, but-
Yuugen-V: Nonono, it's fine, we weren't even thinking you had to help. That was brave of you, but please be more careful.
(Terumi gives a small smile)
Terumi and Yuugen-V turn to see Mack exiting the steering mechanism.
Mack: The ship's pointing up, you two should be able to make the jump in a sec!
Yuugen-V: Make the-Mack, could you please take time to explain these ideas before you go through with them?!
Mack: If I explained we wouldn't have time to do them, just hurry!
Strepsirrhine of DOOM!
Chrissy shrugged. "Hate's a really strong word. I generally save it for Nazis, child molesters, and sardines."
"...sardines?"
"Those fuckers know what they did."
Swordofknowledge
Simon Travers (the protagonist of a setting of mine and one of three leaders of the Heroes "R" Us organization the story revolves around) is in a constant struggle against the influence of a dark deity he made a Deal with the Devil with long ago. Here is where he turns the tables somewhat and, rather than resist, he actually demands power from his patron to save his friends, thus activating a nightmarish Super Mode.
For context, this is part of a much bigger inner monologue where Simon realizes just what a flawed leader he is and how his unchecked desire to be the hero has led himself and those around him into ruin time and time again. Now they are cornered by a Type 3 vampire, one of the most horrifying monsters in the setting, and he is ultimately responsible for getting his friends into this desperate predicament. He sees the error of his ways and refuses to let those he cares about die because of his brashness.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Sep 22nd 2023 at 9:01:37 AM
"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
Sanity not included
"She was good to me!"
"She kidnapped you and chained you to a bed for a week!"
"That still makes her less abusive than most women in my life!"
"I... holy shit."
"Yup."
"You okay?"
"Nope."
Stark Holmes
Context: main character Lillian is musing outside of her work.
Can shapeshift (probably)
WARNING: This is loooong
The main character (Hutch) is blamed for a wildfire that supposedly was made by someone for the sole purpose of shedding some other thief's loot to spite them. While the people closest to him know it's total bullshit, his best friend owns a drove of pigs that became feverish after the fire despite the latter always keeping them safe and never taking them outside, leading to suspicion that someone's planning to blackmail them with a Really Dead Montage of all three groups.
Context for this part in particular: There's only one person in their town who actually knows how to blackmail someone, and he's a carny. They wonder if he has next of kin for managing the carnival, because if he does then he's going to have to drown out the blackmail tampering while they're in his presence, since it's the only thing he'd be constantly around that isn't loud, aside from the carny's fake plastic hook hand (he has a real one under it; no one knows why he wears it) and a set of plastic boomerangs he keeps in his pocket that he gives out for free constantly.
"It could have been a prodigy who started it, it could've not." he remarked. "We're not invisible to them." I wanted Everett to discuss the plagues themselves, who's nuts enough to burst the mere mention of it in their imagination, home appliances included. Fuck. Prodigy was a buzzword now, and the line prize made behind the admission booth by that merry congressman needed a fiddle to be played alongside it, not some bullshit introduction.
My eyes began watering, or at least that's what I wanted to think, after all the gravel in my head went to my mouth, dull and spindly but somehow...not too sharp, at all. "Is it sick of me, to, uh...harvest the back ends of the plagues? Once there's enough bubble wrap around my body? Just so none of us is actually able to chicken out. It's what the prodigy themselves would do, not under the guise of 'saving everyone' though."
Ev answered immediately, though he had one thing to get ahold of: his friable trachea. "Dude, I thought you said this wasn't all because you didn't get a boomerang like the rest of us." It wasn't a stroke of his chin that accompanied that sentence, but him lightly clutching his neck with three fingers, almost as if his signature smoky voice was coming out of my body, and vice versa. He's taunting me now. I should bite his hand off There's a lot to unpack here, but I don't hold it against him.
Swordofknowledge
One of Simon Travers' colder lines. For context, he's calling out a dwarven Type 1 vampire who mind-controls his targets into letting him fatally drain them of their aura energy. This line comes right after the vampire in question softly assures him that he only feeds on willing victims and tries to make Simon look unreasonable for calling him out as a mass-murderer.
- Patryk (the vampire in question): "See for yourself then. Look at those peaceful faces. I'm just that irresistible; they threw themselves at me and begged to be of service in the only way they could. Maybe it isn't something you can understand bu—-"
- Simon: "You didn't just drain their auras, you tampered with them. They were drawn to you; from the moment you touched them, they couldn't get a moment's rest until the all of their energy was sitting in your stomach."
- Patryk (a little surprised and uncomfortable): "Well, uh...you saw through that pretty quickly didn't you? Very perceptive, but I guess I'd expect that from a Guild Master of the GOT—-"
- Simon (cutting him off once again): "It has nothing to do with that. I spent years hunting you people for a living. There's not a single thing you can do to impress or surprise me. And one of the things I learned about Type 1s is that killing the source of the problem did wonders for the people you contaminated.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Oct 24th 2023 at 4:34:43 AM
"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
The World's Least Powerful Man
"I... don't sleep often. The dreams creep in. Some nights, I'm a revenant horror of decay and char. On other nights, devils nip at my heels. On moonlit nights, I see myself as a blood-soaked hunter of wolves who are both less and more then men. Scholars tell us that dreams are a window. Perhaps I peer inadvertantly through the Void Between the Worlds, at myself in other dimensions."
Edited by dvorak on Nov 17th 2023 at 9:23:57 AM
Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!
Swordofknowledge
This Badass Boast by one a villain character of mine, in offended response to being called a mere "Free Mage" by one of the heroes.
- Princess Freyda Mueller: "My family fought its way into centuries of lordship over these mountains when we got tired of emptying our elven masters' privies. As for me—-out of a thousand willing candidates, only I had the wisdom and strength to master Hemocraft. I freely wield the first magic to ever grace this world. I think I'm owed a little more respect than a fucking free mage''.
- It does fall a bit flat though since, although all of these statements are technically true, the character herself is a treacherous, cowardly, Big Bad Wannabe who is incapable of taking even the slightest bit of accountability for her actions. Oh, and her Arch-Nemesis (well, one of them) is a literal child.
Edited by Swordofknowledge on Jan 23rd 2024 at 1:34:00 PM
"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake." —Edgar Wallace
The World's Least Powerful Man
"Balefire!? Surely you jest! That's only theoretical-!"
"He's bluffing. Even if he has them, there's no way to get them to our capitols!"
"Oh no? Want to. Bet. The farm. On it?"
Edited by dvorak on Feb 6th 2024 at 8:53:20 AM
Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!
The Topic Slayer
"Why is cat marijuana legal, but not human catnip?"
Oh no! The DREADED AQUAE MORTIS! No, wait, it's just your imagination.
"A portal out in the open like that probably leads into another, more secure cell. Or a Stinker-threshing machine..."
"Those exist?"
"I'm not sure, but I also don't want to find out..."
"Good point."
Edited by InvisibleWater on Mar 7th 2024 at 8:48:04 AM
Lucas the Dreamer
Not a line I've actually used but here's one I like.
"If you lose, your soul is devoured. If you win, you get a medal and some prize money... and then your soul is devoured."
The Topic Slayer
"I don't want to say 'go steady,' because it sounds so '50s, but… do you want to go steady?"
Oh no! The DREADED AQUAE MORTIS! No, wait, it's just your imagination.
Chronicler of Unseen Stars
Lyudmila scoffed. "That wristwatch has a clock on it, right?" she asked.
"Yeah. Got a particular time you want to get up at?"
"You."
Six tilted his head in confusion before he understood the joke. The girl snickered as she slipped into her bedroll. Six meanwhile grumbled under his breath as he raised his PIP-Boy and set an alarm.
"One thing about humans; we keep trying to destroy this planet. And the planet just won't let us. Heh. Life always finds a way."
Antonius on the present trajectory of reproductive rights:
This is a long one...
1) I actually didn't hate Donnel Udina in Mass Effect. I just figured he had a stressful job and Shepard was making more work for him to deal with.
2) This is my attempt at writing a Refuge in Audacity scene. Just imagine Udina with an unflappable Cheshire Cat Grin the whole time.
"That video's a deep-fake, made by one of those AI's you're not supposed to have but we know you totally do" Udina said glibly. "There is no possible way that we could have stripped Torfan and Logasiri clean of all multi-cellular life. We have determined that these tragedies were the result of large asteroids comprised mostly of fissile materials, and moving at an appreciable fraction of lightspeed. An Act of God, we call it; perhaps as a just and well-deserved punishment for the Batarian Hegemony's many many sins; like unto Soddom and Gommorah." Udina held a certain expression known to mothers and cat-owners accross the galaxy; that of someone who thought he was getting away with something. "Perhaps you should cease your raids on TEC space before God throws *another* plutonium-rich asteroid at you. Maybe He aims the next one at Kar'shan as we speak." He looked the Batarian Ambassador in his topmost pair of eyes and, slowly and very deliberately, tilted his head to the right.
"You see!? He threatens the Hegemony right in front of this Council!" The Batarian Ambassador, furious at the insult and the implication, raised his voice to a level that could only be called "screaming."
"Not so, Ambassador. I merely tell you as one Child of the Almighty to another: Change your ways before it is too late," Udina purred.
"Yes he does! Everybody knows plutonium is only found in breeder reactors and nuclear bombs!"
Udina tsk-ed."Your science textbooks need to be updated."
Edited by dvorak on Jun 14th 2023 at 10:04:04 AM
Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!