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writingprompts – Janeil Harricharan

writingprompts

For awhile now, I’ve been playing with various sci-fi scenarios in my head. When I saw this post, I decided to give a stab at an alternate universe I had parsed in my head. I’ve used this same setting in a few other prompts I’ve written, usually revolving around a freelance mercenary group with their own troop carrier.

Done in September 4, 2020.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Original Post

OP

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Victoria Tellison, Armadillo Head Scientist

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I’ve always wondered why mercenaries with a troop carrier wanted to hire me. Why did they need a scientist like me? Didn’t their tech wizard bug queen know things? Or just look it up on the extranet?

Looks like that was changing.

The last two months Armadillo had been visiting a terraformed planet on the Outer Rim. Some radical space pope went back in time centuries ago, stole people from Earth from the 1800s and set them up to live there. Why? Aside from her own enjoyment, nobody knows.

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The title of this prompt struck me a few ways, and decided to add a bit of intrigue and other stuff to it. It originally was meant to have more than one part, which I unfortunately was never able to finish. I’ll need to do that someday.

Done in October 16, 2019.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Huschens is an Easter Egg nod-off to Angry Cops.

Original Post

OP

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I wrinkled my eyebrows at the person who interrupted me, clearly not enjoying be pulled away from my drink. It was Gunnery Sergeant Huschens; clean chiseled face, camo fatigues and a drill instructor hat. At first his voice sounded official and very commanding, but upon hearing me answer affirmatively, changed to that that half New Jersey accent, ushering me with an informal hand wave.

I sigh heavily, grabbing my cup of coffee and making my way across the hangar.

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Not going to lie, I often enjoy hopping in on certain writing prompts, and while I know the OP wanted one thing, go along with in a completely different direction. In this case, humanity gets a message to “be quite” instead of “be quiet.”

Very short, but very rofl.

Done on October 8, 2020.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Original Post

OP

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And it was easy for humanity to be quite. You see, they were quite accurate in their starship development, sciences…even simple things such as placing a shopping mall on Mars.

They remained quite accurate, quite scientific, quite humorous, quite determined. The quite never stopped.

When they finally reached those that had responded to them, those aliens facepalmed. How they wished their scientist learned how to spell. Humanity was supposed to stay quiet, not stay quite. Now they were doomed.

But there was nothing to worry about. Because humanity had been quite for centuries, it was time for them to be quite again. Quite defensive, quite victorious, quite imposing.

And it worked!

Now as humanity spreads across the galaxy centuries later, the legend is passed down. They are the race that took the warning of “be quite”.

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So this was a short reply I did last year. Not too much to say about this, but it was great to go out of my zone to a sci-fi root. I do miss writing sci-fi with spacecraft ops.

Done in September 4, 2020.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Original Post

OP

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Well, the Prowler’s EMP shield held.

“Well, unless you’re some cosmic entity, you usually die when a nuclear weapon gets detonated in your face.”

The blast was fading as the starlight started to twinkle again. I could see my attack carrier’s light blinking starboard, dipping my nose towards it.

“The possibility of less…annihilation was possible to defeat him. But it was necessary to make sure his life was extinguished.”

“Yeah, tell me about it, Armadillo. Can I get my ass back on the deck, or do you need me to get milk while I’m out here?”

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So something happened on r/WritingPrompts about a month ago, probably a bit more time than that.

Apparently it’s now an issue that I post my artwork to their subreddit for Image Prompts. Specifically they have a rule against self-promotion, but mine has bananas of problems. Why, you may ask?

Well, they don’t like that my image has a watermark of a URL, and that URL leads to my website that has a “Shop” area.

They’ve told me that I can post the artwork without a watermark, or post a watermark that doesn’t have any identifying information to really find me online, or directly link to social media. The second mod that laid down the final ruling seemed a bit more understanding, but left it as that.

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While I was on my writing streak last summer, this was one prompt I had written a response to. I find that I like to “go against” the grain of most of the responses, if that’s a thing. A lot of people on this thread were “whoops, I got left here” or “I was serving a prison sentence here”. The architecture reminded me a lot of South Asian, so I tried to put that into a spin of someone visiting. A bit brief and rough, but I liked it.

Done in July 24, 2020.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Original Post

Original Image (in case hosting or post goes down)

OP

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“How far are we out?”

“Not too far, we will be onsite in a minute.”

Va’shoo unsteadily fingered her pulse rifle. Their lance had been sent to bodyguard the Monarch’s “Paladin” on a personal matter. She had sent her and several of her sisters with this task. The young man differed from both their kind and hers; the olive skin and dark hair. He had been recovered in deep space two years ago, and his origins were unknown.

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In the rare instance, one of my prompts actually got responded in a Prompt Me post. In this scenario, I told them to write about my two clerics, and to play around with their accents. I didn’t specify which, and they ended up swapping it on the characters. They did a pretty snazzy job, I think!

Done on September 4, 2020.

This piece of writing is not my own, and belongs to the original poster.

OP is now deleted, but you can still access their original post.

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I’m not sure anyone knows how much your ass starts to hurt after riding a horse for five hours straight. To say I was lost was a massive understatement. At this rate, the village is as good as ashes right now. I had to get off and try and figure out where in the wide world I was.

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When I saw this WritingPrompt for being stuck with a life partner, I happily gave it a stab using my space pope archetype. Everyone was also “Umm, don’t know what to say”. Definitely had to change that trend.

It was a bit rushed, so my version here is a little fleshed out.

Done September 24, 2020.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Original Post

OP

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I slowly blinked to existence. I saw a bunch of agitated couples about me, a female genie laughing her behind off. As I tried to waft the smell of smoke off of me, she noticed and glanced at a figure in front of me.

“And here’s your new life partner.”

The genie poofed into nothingness before I could say another. I was stunned for a brief minute, assessing my surroundings.

Aside from dozens of various freaking out couples, it reminded me of a fantasy version of those cityscapes I’d see on deviantART. I started to wonder about how I was going to get back to my old life, and what was my immediate future plans. However that didn’t stop me from regarding the person I had been ‘stuck’ with.

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This is my first ever writing prompt I responded to on Reddit. I had seen the sub a few days before; while mindlessly browsing writing subreddits to get involved in, this had come up. The idea that while humans were the most pacifistic species, they could also be the deadliest.

This post in particular had gained a lot of traction in the sub, and it seemed like a great fit for me to try. So applied myself I did.

Apparently I did real good on this one over the others, and got several comments on this. Pleased was an understatement. Not bad for my first try.

Done in approximately March 13, 2016.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Original Post

OP

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“Father.”

“Yes, brood?”

“Why do we not attack the humans? Are they not reprehensible?”

The multi-legged creature looked at its miniature copy of itself clinging to the mushroom tree.

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This was a fun little prompt I saw pop up during a dive into r/WritingPrompts one night. Short, but interesting. I might expand on it one day.

Done in August 18, 2020.

Note: My writing for Reddit writing prompts is different for brevity. While this is a good example of my writing, I often omit backstory and several details to create a concise post. Please look at my other works if you’re looking for my more regular style of writing.

Original Post

OP

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The earthquake thankfully didn’t damage my house, though I did break a flatscreen and knocked over some more fragile gaming things. Thankfully mom and my girlfriend helped clean up. She was used to these sorts of things back in Asia, but had gone out of town for a college orientation.

But it was worse at the regional airport. They had shut the place down. And the main 11000’ runway had been wrecked; apparently the ground split the runway apart, and the chasm was at least forty feet across and went down over a hundred feet. Not a safe place to take off or land.

So why was I hearing planes still landing after 10PM?

It was 2AM, everyone was mostly asleep. I myself was in my bed. But there it was, that dull roar of a heavy going in for final. Deciding to fight my laziness, I sat up in bed and looked out the window.

For the most part, I could sometimes see if an aircraft was headed by. In the pitch suburban black not much was visible, but I did make out the marker lights of an aircraft.

Well, that was interesting. The lights were more forward up the fuselage. And the nose beacon was a lot lower than the wing marker lights; it seemed to have a good bit of weight to it. It wasn’t a nimble regional, It also wasn’t those 737 puddle jumpers.

Something did click in my head. Only two classes of aircraft had those kind of wings, and one was too small for it.

This was military.

Why the hell was the military flying in air transports to the airport? It could be relief for sure, but nobody was at the airport since it was shut down. There was no proper place for them to land in the first place. On top of that, it wasn’t like the entire city was in a disaster area; local services could certainly handle a wrecked airport.

I watched the plane until it was obscured by another house, flopping back into bed. What was going on?

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