8.7 KiB
[Biweekly Challenge] Superheroes
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Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4uxg75/biweekly_challenge_superheroes/
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Score: 20
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Created: 2016-07-27T22:44:12
Post:
Last Time
Last time, the prompt was "Happy Stories". The winner (and sole entrant) was /u/Kishoto with their story, My Promise. Go read it now! Congratulations to /u/Kishoto!
This Time
This time, we'll be doing "Superheroes". Pick your favorite universe or franchise to riff on, or make up a hero of your own. This is a great time to write some fanfic. Remember that prompts are to inspire, not to limit.
The winner will be decided Wednesday, August 10th. You have until then to post your reply and start accumulating upvotes. It is strongly suggested that you get your entry in as quickly as possible once this thread goes up; this is part of the reason that prompts are given in advance. Like reading? It's suggested that you come back to the thread after a few days have passed to see what's popped up. The reddit "save" button is handy for this.
Rules
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300 word minimum, no maximum. Post as a link to Google Docs, pastebin, Dropbox, etc. This is mandatory.
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No plagiarism, but you're welcome to recycle and revamp your own ideas you've used in the past.
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Think before you downvote.
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Winner will be determined by "best" sorting.
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Winner gets reddit gold, special winner flair, and bragging rights. Five-time winners get even more special winner flair, and their choice of prompt if they want it.
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All top-level replies to this thread should be submissions. Non-submissions (including questions, comments, etc.) belong in the companion thread, and will be aggressively removed from here.
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Top-level replies must be a link to Google Docs, a PDF, your personal website, etc. It is suggested that you include a word count and a title when you're linking to somewhere else.
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In the interest of keeping the playing field level, please refrain from cross-posting to other places until after the winner has been decided.
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No idea what rational fiction is? Read the wiki!
Meta
If you think you have a good prompt for a challenge, add it to the list (remember that a good prompt is not a recipe). Also, if you want a quick index of past challenges, I've posted them on the wiki.
Next Time
Next time, we'll be doing "Black and White Morality". Write a story about pure good and ultimate evil. You are entirely welcome to do a subversion of the prompt, so long as you're rotating around that theme. If you can write a recognizably rational story which is about unambiguous good and evil (in contravention of the sidebar rule), more power to you.
Next challenge's thread will go up on 8/10. Please private message me with any questions or comments, as the beloved meta thread is now archived. The companion thread is available here.
Comments:
u/DocFuture [+7] (6 days later)
Here is my entry, The Old Man
u/Kishoto [+2] (7 days later)
Very enjoyable. I'm not fully caught up on The Maker's Ark but I'm glad I didn't need to be to grasp the story. A very good read.
u/DocFuture [+1] (7 days later)
Thank you. I tried to make as accessible as possible to readers who were unfamiliar with my world, while avoiding spoilers. The one unavoidable spoiler for Skybreaker's Call was that he lives.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (8 days later)
And honestly, is it really a spoiler that the hero lives?
u/DCarrier [+2] (14 days later)
Flicker is the hero. The Volunteer is just a hero. And he's her mentor, which has a really high mortality rate.
u/Nepene [+1] (8 days later)
Thanks for this, was a fun read.
It's mildly amusing imagining them browsing the internet to learn those rather uncommon terms.
u/DocFuture [+1] (9 days later)
No internet in Kyrjaheim 8-). He learned the current terms from some of the more recently returned Choosers. About 2/3 of the Choosers are not exclusively heterosexual, and he is good at listening.
u/Kishoto [+2] (9 days later)
Hey, remind me again: What exactly is a Chooser? Is that one of the women that chooses to follow Valkyrie and so joins her group?
u/DocFuture [+1] (9 days later)
There are two kinds--the original ones serving the Wanderer were a lot like Norse/Germanic Valkyries. Golden Valkyrie's ones are human women who died that she regarded heroic and worthy enough to bring back from the dead to serve her. They didn't necessarily start as warriors--Margie was a doctor who died in her 60s while helping to eradicate polio from the more remote, war-torn parts of Africa, and she's been a Chooser for 17 years or so.
u/Nepene [+6] (8 days later)
My entry and story, Loyalty.
u/Kishoto [+3] (11 days later)
Lol, I've had similar thoughts whenever I see storylines where the public/mortals protest superheroes. Who's going to deal with the supervillains now? Like, it's never made sense to me. Authors try and justify it with claims of property damage, vigilantism, etc. but does any of that matter when Darkseid shows up? When the Joker holds the Mayor hostage? When Doctor Doom launches an assault that no conventional military can combat?
u/Nepene [+2] (11 days later)
Yeah. I was put in the same frame of mind by the recent captain america avenger's film. I mean, yes, the avenger's actions killed a couple people, but in the first avengers film they were about to resort to a nuclear warhead before that, in the second under 100 (I think) died from what was supposed to be an extinction level event. It seems like a really bad idea. I've never really seen a story make someone confront that to my memory. What happens after you ban superheroes and Darkseid comes to slay?
Metropoliton man made me want an ending like that too.
u/trekie140 [+1] (11 days later)
The Sokovia Accords did have the benefit of allowing the superheroes to keep saving people and fighting villains, they'd just be under the direct supervision of a government agency while doing it.
u/Nepene [+2] (11 days later)
They did, but their record didn't justify any need for such accords- they had an incredibly low casualty rate, and others caused most of the deaths and were to blame. Governments were happy to nuke a city to fix an issue they stopped. Far more people die from police shootings than avenger incidents.
Under the accords New York would have been glassed.
u/Draconomial [+2] Sunshine Regiment (10 days later)
Daredevil, he is not.
u/Nepene [+1] (10 days later)
He's not what I'd describe as a hyper ethical lawyer, or blind.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (12 days later)
Can I just link Induction? You did say "no maximum". :>
u/traverseda [+1] With dread but cautious optimism (12 days later)
Is it available for free? ;p
In the portal fantasy entry, someone linked to their log-horizen fic, which was pre-existing and pretty long.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (13 days later)
Is it available for free? ;p
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Given that I posted every chapter of it here, you should probably know the answer to that. :P
u/traverseda [+1] With dread but cautious optimism (13 days later)
I've paid for a few of the other one's in the change storm series, and I'd forgotten about that one.
u/b_sen [+1] (13 days later)
Well, you can, but I don't know if you're allowed to submit a work more than once so you might want to save it.
I'm saving my little practice piece, despite the fact that I'm trying to finish the draft tonight, because it blew up in my face again. (I didn't add any events to it! My characters just have very detailed inner lives, and my job is to get out of their way!)