Hey! It looks like you're new here. You might want to check out the introduction.
Show rules for this event
WriteoffTopia: Australian Apocalypse! (Issue 6 of 6)
The timer on the orbital hyperbomb ticked down to 00:00:59 as Cold in Gardez punched through the shields of the final dropbearship, disabling its warp drive and flinging it down into the atmosphere toward the deep Outback. "You're clear!" he shouted into his radio, ducking as a barrage of Spoon Rays speared through the vacuum near his head.
A jet of liquid metal spurted out from their captured Kangarude fighter, reforming into Horizon as it lanced toward the ticking activator. The figure turned back toward Cold, and his earpiece crackled. "Roger!"
"Don't use that for yes!" Cold shouted back, irritated, as he ripped the legs off a space megaspider. "We've talked about—"
Horizon flailed his limbs frantically. "Roger!"
Cold whirled around to see a darkly glowing figure, just in time for Sydney Harbour Bridge to hit him in the face.
"Is anyone else beginning to dislike this 'triweekly crime wave' thing?" Fenton shouted, flinging up a barrier of liquid smoke as gunfire chattered toward the beleaguered heroes from Letter J's arm-cannons. "Another Dodger Dimension armada warps in, drawing the Medal Warriors away, and every supervillain in the city sees an opportunity to rampage!"
"It's not triweekly!" Monokeras shouted from inside the Victoria's Secret, ducking a fierce swing from the howling werewolf's bag of stolen vibranium bras.
"That'stechnicallytrueifyouallowyourselftotakerestbreaks," CoffeeMinion vibrated as his blurry form rocketed around the square, snatching falling rubble from over the heads of cowering civilians as Orbiting Kettle's meteor microstrikes exploded around him. "Buttheseeventsdoappeartooccurwithsurprisingperiodicity."
WHAM! The wolf finally connected, and Monokeras sailed through the store's front window, Lise Eclaire's elemental field catching him right before he slammed into the Present Perfect Memorial Statue. Monokeras rubbed the new dent in his ultra-thick skin and scowled. "No, I mean that 'triweekly' is defined as three times per week."
"Well, then how do you say 'every 21 days'?" Fenton asked, catching his breath as J ducked around a corner to reload.
"hemi-semi-tri-moonly," a gibbous voice waxed as the chthonic form of Groaning Grey Agony flailed menacing tentacles at the screaming crowd it had driven insane. The monstrosity froze in place as Ranmilia held up a glowing pocket watch and pointed at it, and the nuts bolted before they could get nailed.
"Don't be pedantic—in actual usage 'triweekly' can mean 'every three weeks' even if that's technically wrong," Lise said to Monokeras while she loosed a flame jet at a cackling Posh. It wasn't quite in time to keep him from slipping into his getaway car with a bag of stolen cash, but it did melt the vehicle's tires, fixing it in place. She grinned. "I think you're still sore that that cute widdle bunny got the best of you."
"Don't even joke about that," Dubs said, sweat beading on his forehead as he sucked the light away from Fenton to enhance his shadow powers, brightening the area around the remaining villains to help his teammates' targeting. "That rabbit was a demon. It's a good thing that nondescript Midwestern dad was there with that shovel or we'd have all met the Great Heroes in the Sky."
An unearthly shriek from beyond the planet punctuated the conversation, and everyone—hero and villain alike—stopped and glanced up into the sky. A glow like a new sun was illuminating the distant horizon, and the entire atmosphere seemed to sing with gathering charge.
It was a wide-eyed Ranmilia who spoke for them all. "The Warriors," he whispered. "D-did they… fail?"
Horizon screamed impotently as he smashed two megaspiders together, trying to thrash free of the swarm as the timer ticked to its last seconds. With Roger occupying Cold, he didn't have enough covering fire to reach and disable the device. It was already arming. Beginning to go nova. It was hopeless.
Then his comm crackled.
Uploading joke database, a hollow voice echoed.
The painful light distorted. Warped. Folded in on itself, and then the bomb was gone, replaced with the deep darkness of space and a tiny metallic form glinting with reflected sunlight.
WriteoffBot beeped. Upload finished. Power levels at 9.99e99 percent.
Then space distorted around it again, and the last thing it said before vanishing was:
Apotheosis complete.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Set in WriteoffTopia, which technically as an open worldbuilding project isn't "a work under U.S. copyright". Entered purely as a Writeoffs love-letter; I won't be offended if you bottom-slate it to penalize in-joke submissions.
Apologies to those I couldn't include in 750 words.)
A jet of liquid metal spurted out from their captured Kangarude fighter, reforming into Horizon as it lanced toward the ticking activator. The figure turned back toward Cold, and his earpiece crackled. "Roger!"
"Don't use that for yes!" Cold shouted back, irritated, as he ripped the legs off a space megaspider. "We've talked about—"
Horizon flailed his limbs frantically. "Roger!"
Cold whirled around to see a darkly glowing figure, just in time for Sydney Harbour Bridge to hit him in the face.
"Is anyone else beginning to dislike this 'triweekly crime wave' thing?" Fenton shouted, flinging up a barrier of liquid smoke as gunfire chattered toward the beleaguered heroes from Letter J's arm-cannons. "Another Dodger Dimension armada warps in, drawing the Medal Warriors away, and every supervillain in the city sees an opportunity to rampage!"
"It's not triweekly!" Monokeras shouted from inside the Victoria's Secret, ducking a fierce swing from the howling werewolf's bag of stolen vibranium bras.
"That'stechnicallytrueifyouallowyourselftotakerestbreaks," CoffeeMinion vibrated as his blurry form rocketed around the square, snatching falling rubble from over the heads of cowering civilians as Orbiting Kettle's meteor microstrikes exploded around him. "Buttheseeventsdoappeartooccurwithsurprisingperiodicity."
WHAM! The wolf finally connected, and Monokeras sailed through the store's front window, Lise Eclaire's elemental field catching him right before he slammed into the Present Perfect Memorial Statue. Monokeras rubbed the new dent in his ultra-thick skin and scowled. "No, I mean that 'triweekly' is defined as three times per week."
"Well, then how do you say 'every 21 days'?" Fenton asked, catching his breath as J ducked around a corner to reload.
"hemi-semi-tri-moonly," a gibbous voice waxed as the chthonic form of Groaning Grey Agony flailed menacing tentacles at the screaming crowd it had driven insane. The monstrosity froze in place as Ranmilia held up a glowing pocket watch and pointed at it, and the nuts bolted before they could get nailed.
"Don't be pedantic—in actual usage 'triweekly' can mean 'every three weeks' even if that's technically wrong," Lise said to Monokeras while she loosed a flame jet at a cackling Posh. It wasn't quite in time to keep him from slipping into his getaway car with a bag of stolen cash, but it did melt the vehicle's tires, fixing it in place. She grinned. "I think you're still sore that that cute widdle bunny got the best of you."
"Don't even joke about that," Dubs said, sweat beading on his forehead as he sucked the light away from Fenton to enhance his shadow powers, brightening the area around the remaining villains to help his teammates' targeting. "That rabbit was a demon. It's a good thing that nondescript Midwestern dad was there with that shovel or we'd have all met the Great Heroes in the Sky."
An unearthly shriek from beyond the planet punctuated the conversation, and everyone—hero and villain alike—stopped and glanced up into the sky. A glow like a new sun was illuminating the distant horizon, and the entire atmosphere seemed to sing with gathering charge.
It was a wide-eyed Ranmilia who spoke for them all. "The Warriors," he whispered. "D-did they… fail?"
Horizon screamed impotently as he smashed two megaspiders together, trying to thrash free of the swarm as the timer ticked to its last seconds. With Roger occupying Cold, he didn't have enough covering fire to reach and disable the device. It was already arming. Beginning to go nova. It was hopeless.
Then his comm crackled.
Uploading joke database, a hollow voice echoed.
The painful light distorted. Warped. Folded in on itself, and then the bomb was gone, replaced with the deep darkness of space and a tiny metallic form glinting with reflected sunlight.
WriteoffBot beeped. Upload finished. Power levels at 9.99e99 percent.
Then space distorted around it again, and the last thing it said before vanishing was:
Apotheosis complete.
Continued next issue in:
WRITEOFFTOPIA —THE KILLING !JOKE
WRITEOFFTOPIA —THE KILLING !JOKE
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Set in WriteoffTopia, which technically as an open worldbuilding project isn't "a work under U.S. copyright". Entered purely as a Writeoffs love-letter; I won't be offended if you bottom-slate it to penalize in-joke submissions.
Apologies to those I couldn't include in 750 words.)
A fine entry indeed. Bonus point for having me in it (I'm like that, attention whore easy to bribe).
However, this story brought me a paradox I can't resolve.
You see, the major difference I make between pony rounds and OF rounds when it comes to characters, is that the former doesn't require you to present them (unless you write OCs), contrary to the latter, which is a thing on which I base quite a big part of my judgement.
Since this story relies on being familiar with the Writeofftopia and already existingcharacters people, you avoided a challenge for me, so this will unfortunately make it lose some point.
However, however, however, I want to see this happen again, but it can't occur during pony rounds. I'm torn, please help.
Aside from that, this fits well with what we already got, so definitely not a bottom slater for me. Thank you for your work.
However, this story brought me a paradox I can't resolve.
You see, the major difference I make between pony rounds and OF rounds when it comes to characters, is that the former doesn't require you to present them (unless you write OCs), contrary to the latter, which is a thing on which I base quite a big part of my judgement.
Since this story relies on being familiar with the Writeofftopia and already existing
However, however, however, I want to see this happen again, but it can't occur during pony rounds. I'm torn, please help.
Aside from that, this fits well with what we already got, so definitely not a bottom slater for me. Thank you for your work.
WRITEOFFTOPIA —THE KILLING !JOKE
That ending was the icing on a particularly indulgent cake. This is legitimately the best love-letter to the writeoff community ever and I love you.
That is all.
Some fun and decent action that is really painfully hampered by going broad with characters, making action a bit hard to track (due to the number of things to track).
Also Deus Ex Machina. ^_~
Also Deus Ex Machina. ^_~
What everyone else said. Competent writing, but I'd have preferred to see fewer characters and a more focused story instead of a brief "everyone and the kitchen sink" snapshot. The latter doesn't work too well as an actual entry, because there's no room to explain or introduce anything, so people who don't already know the 'verse are left in the lurch.
Still, nice execution. Makes me want to see this author do more full stories. Thanks for writing!
Still, nice execution. Makes me want to see this author do more full stories. Thanks for writing!
This is a thing of beauty, and not just because it's the first fanfic I've cameoed in in ~2 years. ^^ So I'm basically the Flash due to my caffeine-powered hyper-metabolism? headcanon accepted
I do think the ending flows a little bit less well than the rest, and there are some seriously big huge sentences, but overall I feel like I got my money's worth.
I do think the ending flows a little bit less well than the rest, and there are some seriously big huge sentences, but overall I feel like I got my money's worth.
So I know this is a metafic and everybody’s comments are mostly lighthearted, but I’m going to be “that guy” and judge this story purely by its merits as a story. And I’m sorry to say that it didn’t work for me. For one, it’s a tad too much insanity for me to stomach. Between the stuff in outer space and the villains on the ground, the story never took a break. Wacky and crazy stories are fine, but there needs to be some kind of lull in the madness for us to really get a firm grip on this tale; otherwise, this is just “Word Salad: The MetaFic”. The story also doesn’t work as a one-off, as it’s picking up from a longer story that I haven’t read and just leaves me even more confused (where’s the brief recap every comic book has at the beginning?).
And finally, the joke is hard to get if you don’t know about these various writers’ personalities. By focusing the humor to such a specific group, it leaves many readers confused and unable to “get” the joke. Heck, the story itself doesn’t really make jokes about how the writers write, their differing styles or anything related to writing itself. They’re just plucked in the middle of a superhero story, and we’re just supposed to roll with this. Humor does often come from ill-fitting pieces, but this story didn’t emphasize that unfitness enough to where it could be effective (like, for instance, if one of the writers didn’t know how to interact with the other heroes in real-life, since he always lived vicariously through his writing).
Again, I repeat that I know this is meant to be goofy and more of an in-joke than anything else, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be judged like everything else. In-jokes can be as good/bad as anything else, and I personally found this to be pretty unsatisfactory.
So concludes my Negative Nancy review. Feel free to include me as a villain in the next issue, where I stop all attempts at fun within WriteoffTopia.
And finally, the joke is hard to get if you don’t know about these various writers’ personalities. By focusing the humor to such a specific group, it leaves many readers confused and unable to “get” the joke. Heck, the story itself doesn’t really make jokes about how the writers write, their differing styles or anything related to writing itself. They’re just plucked in the middle of a superhero story, and we’re just supposed to roll with this. Humor does often come from ill-fitting pieces, but this story didn’t emphasize that unfitness enough to where it could be effective (like, for instance, if one of the writers didn’t know how to interact with the other heroes in real-life, since he always lived vicariously through his writing).
Again, I repeat that I know this is meant to be goofy and more of an in-joke than anything else, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be judged like everything else. In-jokes can be as good/bad as anything else, and I personally found this to be pretty unsatisfactory.
So concludes my Negative Nancy review. Feel free to include me as a villain in the next issue, where I stop all attempts at fun within WriteoffTopia.