Whamise this line. A Game.

Said "thing" is actually an Artifact of Doom that our Kid Hero has been looking for and was threw in a bin by his Hot Mom. Now, he must look for it, leading to a chase scene and a duel against his best friend who wants to use that for his own unexplained purposes.

"Please, tell me this is water and not what I think it is."

Our hero has just been covered in a clear, watery fluid from a pressured tank in the ceiling. That clear watery fluid is not in fact water, but saline. Saline containing some particularly nasty, infectious nanobots. Our hero now has about 12 hours to live, the last 8 of which s/he will spend in a semiconcious state, incapable of movement, being broken down into a puddle of organic chemicals, water, and more nanobots. Soon afterwards, the nanobots will spread to every nearby organism, and repeat the process indefinitely.

"I can taste sound, and it smells like chicken!"

Sam has been injected with Xigeqs6dui an extremely powerful hallucinogen/neurotoxin whose first symptom is synesthesia. His friends think he’s down for the count. However “smells like chicken” is his trust password. He’s fine. The mission is a go.

“Random sketchiness, always a good thing.”

It is the beginning of a long speech by the resident Magnificent Bastard / Reverse Mole, who has been missing for quite a while. His Nakama tracks him down to the deepest room of this abandoned building, discovering their friend standing there alone. After the line is spoken, the heroes learn that the guy actually hated every last one of them, was never actually their friend, and has wanted to kill them since the beginning of the story. Heroic BSODs ensue.

"It can be fun to act like something you're not."

The Heroic Wannabe trying to explain he wants to be a hero so desperately even though he's horrible at it.

"Why did I do it, why did you do that. Why does anybody do anything".

edited 22nd Apr '11 8:46:44 PM by Xaz

A blank-eyed Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds (and living Artifact of Doom) parroting back the words of their now-reformed tormentor after shooting a former ally while slowly raising the gun to their temple...

"I suppose not. But people will believe so many things..."

The Bad Ass summarizing his beliefs of the general populace after they have just bought into some spin from the media that makes him and his team look bad and he's smoking a cigaret during all of this

"Killing, it's the only reason I get up in the morning. Well that and food"

edited 23rd Apr '11 12:58:37 AM by Xaz

Somebody asks a small child what they like to do for fun.

"My arm was really itchy that day."

edited 23rd Apr '11 2:22:45 AM by DonZabu

The Machiavilian protagonist who has spent most of the story doing whatever it takes to protect his son from a heinous disease he had a hand in designing that was somehow unleashed, hears this line from his son as they're nearly home free, indicating he's developing the symptoms.

"Go tell the women that we're leaving."

The hero and friends have been trapped in a hell like place and have just been told by the Big Bad, who is a woman, that they are going to spend the rest of eternity here because the only way to escape is to defeat the Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot army of hers. The hero then delvers this line to one of the friends

"You think you know the story of Jesus, going around preaching and healing people. Well let me tell you there's a lot you don't know"

edited 23rd Apr '11 2:45:03 AM by Xaz

A risen disciple of Jesus giving a biographical tell-all of Christ's life behind the scenes, especially those awkward years that the Bible doesn't tell of between Jesus' birth and his adulthood. One example would be how he came to meet Mary Magdalene. Let's just put it this way: Satan wasn't the only one to try and tempt the lamb of God, and he had to go through all this for way more than forty days and forty nights.

"There's only one way, buddy! You've got to fight for what you believe in."

The protagonist has been injected with a formula that is slowly taking his memories, beliefs and mind away. He then has a scene inside his own head where he meats his old mentor who then gives him this line, and the protagonist is a freedom fighter so he's got to both physically and metaphorically fight for what he believes in.

"I would hate to be a god, it would be so dull"

Tying in with the explanation above, this is Jesus musing as a young man on his future destiny to be the savior of all mankind. He's thinking of being up in Heaven and ruling alongside God the Father, what it would be like compared to everything that's going on down here on Earth.

"There's no mercy in war, people live and people die. That's all there is to it. Too bad. This twisted game needs to be reset."

edited 23rd Apr '11 3:06:50 AM by Gault

The Big bad explaining why he was invading small african countries, he just felt like it, and how he is just going to nuke the hell out of the advancing rebel forces and start his war games somewhere else.

"You no what screw it, I sick of this sick game. I didn't want to play it and so I'm not"

The Wild Card character in an Evil Versus Evil dispute set inside of a vast virtual reality simulator said directly before shutting the whole thing off. What will happen to the opposing sides following this is unknown, though it is likely fairly awful.

"You ever been to Monrovia, kid?" *

edited 23rd Apr '11 4:03:37 AM by JHM

A grizzled UN Peacekeeper puncturing the ego of a fresh recruit in to the United States Marine Corps by first asking him that question. He had been on the Liberian peacekeeping mission during and after the civil war.

"Those who spend a long time on the battlefield start to think they're invincible."

The old veteran consoling the hero about his hardass mentor going up against the big bad, who he probably knew he couldn't beat, and getting his brains blown out.

"Why have you forsaken me with this terrible curse you call life"

That ain't a Wham Line. Remember, this is about setting up scenarios that can be radically altered by just those few words.

I propose a new set of rules.

- Critique the previous response. - Respond to the previous Wham Line. - Post your own. - Optionally: Include a spoiler'd description of the circumstances preceding the Wham Line you just posted.

For instance the context of the line "John.... That's my gun. Here, have Carter's" is from a story of mine where.... John, the lancer, has spent much of the story pursuing his enemy, Isaac, and is about to kill him with Omar's gun when Omar arrives. John is the hero, lawful good and all, and would usually dissuade such an act of revenge. This time, however, he's perfectly willing to let Isaac die and simply instructs John to use the gun of Carter, a smug snake who had recently died, in order to avoid the consequences.

I could be misunderstanding, but under that context, the line changes nothing, merely offering a summation of the mentor's character.

The sorceress has finally caught up to the demon, who has been set up to be her moby dick, and says this line... Revealing she once was his consort before he inexplicably made her mortal.

Next up... "Fix bayonets."

edited 23rd Apr '11 5:46:49 AM by JWHarding

That was a perfect choice for a line. Are you psychic?

Wesley fumbles for his bayonet at the formation commander's order. He finally grasps it and slides it on to it's lug at the end of his Zastava Bm-12 revolver rifle. The rest of the soldiers in line have done the same. They could see the enemy approaching. Melee infantry. That meant that they were probably going to charge, and the bayonets were meant to counter that. It depended on what range they were at whether the next order would be to fire or to counter-charge. He hoped it would be the former.

This the kind of thing you looking for?

"He glanced down at his watch. The entire operation had taken less than six minutes."

edited 23rd Apr '11 5:57:12 AM by Gault

This line is pretty much a spoiler-ish one and it's actually based on the Magical Girl reconstruction I'm planning right now, but of course the line below is actually spoken by someone else (happens in one of The Reveals before the final battles.)

"He could feel the fresh smell of blood his eye and leg were flowing out, but the next thing he saw, his stepsister was dead."

Jimmy will, from now on, be forever and ever known as "zippy". A disappointing achievement to both he, and his new girlfriend.

A man plays a FPS, he and his teammates are in a dire situation, his sister was shot down and now he only had one more clip left. Damn grenade spammers, he thought.

"Can you hear the music? It's beautiful, isn't it?"

edited 23rd Apr '11 7:09:51 AM by Fancolors

The butt monkey, thought to be deaf character reveals himself as the mole as he has the her/villain at gun point.

"Funny... I would've though that was a Major's billet."

A new recruit realises that he has put prank booby traps in the wrong room...

"You want to draw a thin, bright line here, you say. There is no line. There never was a line."

Apologies. Didn't notice the change in structure. Accursed thread-hopping...

edited 23rd Apr '11 8:45:39 AM by JHM

Aren't we supposed to create the situation preceding the line, explaining why it's such a 'holy shit' moment?

Example for the 'Fix bayonets' thing:

There's a major protest going on in the city, the government panicked, and the military was sent in to supervise the situation. However, it's clearly an overreaction. The demonstration is large but peaceful, and the soldiers are just standing around, watching as more protesters pour into the square, and waiting for the call to pull back so that the police can do the job they were supposed to be doing in the first place. Some of them are even swapping jokes with the bolder civilians, or waving to family members in the crowd.

Then a new order crackles through their comm-links.

edited 23rd Apr '11 8:07:49 AM by Iaculus