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[landingtree]

For the last while I've been convening a semi-weekly Frantic Fanfic group on the Scintillaton discord. Frantic Fanfic is a website which works like this: everyone writes down five characters, then those names are shuffled up together in a virtual hat, and everyone is given a different five to choose a pair from; then everyone has three minutes to write the start of a story starring that pair; then each start is passed to another player, who has four minutes to read the first part and then follow it up with a middle; then ditto for the end. (Except that in the mode we play, the last writer can't read the story's beginning, only its middle. This makes the discovery of what the beginning was more fun at the end, and adds chaos, for example, sometimes a story will begin after the defeat of Sauron but end before it).

Innovations have developed over time: including characters like 'their trouble-prone toddler' and 'their doppelganger', or having scenarios from a night's first round of fic pop up in the second (Doctor Strange was seduced by two different monarchs of Europe at one point).

We find characters returning frequently when they come with a form that's easy to write off the top of our heads, like Socrates (he enters dialogue with people) and, as seen below, Sherlock (he solves and deduces). Also, characters who come with rhyme schemes and directly copy-pasteable formats. (As Satan was recently heard to declaim: I do not like God's Grace and ham! I do not like them, Sam I am!)

This week's stories were really fun, and represent a good range of the things we tend to write, and, as it happens, were all written by Dreamwidth-havers, so I'm posting them here!



TITLE: A tale whose narrator shrank too far to finish it
FEATURING THE CHARACTERS: baba yaga, alice in wonderland
WRITERS: me, js_thrill, landofnowhere

The chicken-footed house had no truck with paradox. It descended directly to Wonderland, digging the rabbit hole open. When a church-weasel tried to play logic games with it, it was crushed underfoot, which explains why there are no more church-weasels left in the world, only churchmice and doormice and regular weasels.

The blustering guard of the Red Queen was brought up short by Baba Yaga herself emerging with one crooked finger raised.

"I'll have you know, one of the destinations I *could* have visited was The British Monarchy! Do you think I would've been nice to them, in the wake of their recent loss? No! I'd have killed another! So please do take me to the queen who loves to chop heads off, and we'll see what we shall see."
-

Alice was watching all this from a safe distance. Until now, things here had mostly seemed, well, silly and nonsensical. Or non-silly and sensical. But at the very least, they hadn't seemed dangerous. Suddenly, though, this new character seemed to be a bird of a different feather. Or was that a horse of a different color. Oh, she rather wished she could ask someone how that expression went, but the only people nearby to ask were the very angry woman in the chicken-legged house, and the guards who were talking about taking people off to a (somewhat more comically) violent Queen. Alice tried to figure out what to do, when she remembered that she had brought some of the cake with her from the room with the tiny doors earlier. She wasn't sure how shrinking her size down could help, but she figured she needed to do something, and that *was* something. She pulled out a piece of cake to eat, when suddenly the angry witch looked right at her!
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"Little Girl", the witch said. "Why don't you come into my house?"

But Alice had already swallowed her cake, and was quickly shrinking down to the size of a mouse.

"Ohhhhh..." said the witch. "A wizard's duel, is it to be? Well, two can play at that game -- though that hardly needs to be said, duels--duals are for two."

And the witch metamorphosed herself into the shape of a cat, and chased after Alice. This was very awkward for Alice because although she was the size of a mouse, she was not the shape of a mouse, and could not scamper like one. On the other hand, the witch didn't seem to be seriously chasing her, but waiting for her next move, expecting her to change into something else.

Alice considered whether she should try to outgrow the cat, but it seemed like her best move was to continue shrinking until she became invisib





TITLE: Too Close for Comfort
FEATURING THE CHARACTERS: their understudy, the uncomfortable truth
WRITERS: js_thrill, landofnowhere, me

The uncomfortable truth got ready to head on stage. It was finally their time to shine.

Opening night and everything!

Suddenly, their understudy reached out a gentle hand.

"Hey, umm, I've been thinking. Do you think maybe it wouldn't be better for *me* to go on tonight?"

"Really? But, I want to go out there and really let everyone know what *needs* to be said."

"I just think maybe it's not time yet."

"You do this every time, Comforting Lies." The Truth's voice breaking a bit. "Every time!"

-

The Director poked his head in: "Are you two all right?"

And simultaneously the Uncomfortable Truth said "No, we're having another fight, please help me out!" while Comforting Lies said "It's all right now, don't worry, we've agreed that I'll cover for the Uncomfortable Truth tonight."

The Director nodded to both of them. "It's clear that you're not in a state to perform, Uncomfortable Truth. Why don't you just relax and have a cup of tea? Comforting Lies, thank you so much for your help, I'll need you right here."

And so Comforting Lies went on stage and told the audience exacly what they wanted to hear. And meanwhile the Uncomfortable Truth seethed backstage, and didn't
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drink their tea, but let it grow cold, and then told it exactly how cold it had gotten so it would feel ashamed - and then told themself that after all it was entirely their own fault, for what control was tea meant to have over its own temperature? Comforting Lies came back in after the performance and told Uncomfortable Truth that it had gone over splendidly - but not quite as well, of course, as if Uncomfortable Truth had been onstage - as they would be, next performance, to rapturous applause and by the way they had been in *desperate* need of a cup of lukewarm tea after their time under the stage lights, thank you so much, Uncomfortable Truth, for saving me this one. Uncomfortable Truth stormed out, so as not to have to admit that they had been successfully mollified.





TITLE: the once and future detective
FEATURING THE CHARACTERS: sherlock holmes, king arthur
WRITERS: landofnowhere, me, js_thrill, (me again adding a line after the fact)

"Well, Sherlock", I said, "you have been patronized by royalty before -- yes, I know, I must be discreet about it -- but even you must admit that this is something above and beyond."

Sherlock unrolled the piece of parchment and laid it on the table. "Well, yes", he said, "it does say that it comes from the Knights of the Round Table, but that could be just another fraternal organization, like the Red-Headed League, out there to trap me. However this parchment is very peculiar" -- and he took out a magnifying glass, and t
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rained it on one of the illuminated capitals. "This, I believe, is genuine lambskin; and although I cannot make any real predictions without labwork, I would not be surprised to find these pigments of genuine antiquity. Which is, of course, suspicious in itself, for who would be sending me, today, something with the *appearance* of an ancient parchment."

"Does the text itself offer any explanation?" I said.

"Why yes, Watson," said Sherlock, in his usual "Don't imagine I wasn't seeing the forest for the trees" voice, which in truth I have sometimes found to mean that he has been missing the forest for the trees. "This missive claims to have been written in collaboration with Merlin, who had dim memories of me as a useful colleague of his. The document was written centuries ago, yet with foreknowledge. Most extraordinary."

"And what is the mystery you are asked to solve?"

"Why, nothing of any importance. Only to locate King Arthur's resting place itself, now that the original lake from which he disembarked has been landscaped into nonexistence by some member of the landed gentry."

-

Watson coughed to cover some minorly disparaging remarks about the landed gentry.

"Aha!"

"Solved it then, have you?"

"Yes, my good man. By triangulating the patterns of erosion, and coordinating with alterations to county maps over the relevant time period, I can deduce with a great degree of accuracy where this body of water would once have stood."

"Quite impressive, Holmes! Good play!"

Holmes led them over to the area in question.

"Now, all we need is to unearth down to the level where the water basin would have been."
"With my shoulder, Holmes?" But Watson got to digging.

Eventually, they hit the expected depth, and Watson reached for the hilt of a

-

sword, crusted with dirt and dead weeds but not at all rusty, sticking out from a crack between a couple of big boulders. To his surprise, the sword slid out of the stone as easily as butter.

Comments

[maribou]

These are delightful.

[landingtree]

<3