Most of the stuff I read here that makes me truly belt out with laughter is the stuff that's really absurd, the stuff that makes just enough sense to be related to the prompt, but outside of that, just makes for a hilarious image. The humor that I love the most is the jarring stuff, where you place people in a situation where their actions are just simply insane and weird, and takes me a hot minute to even figure out what's going on.

Man tripa his way into being deified, completely on accident.

She was a girl, he was a boy, could it be any more complicated?

"No, you don't understand, we have to-"

"But Minecraft's fun!" the kid smiled. "Plus, I'll get to tell dad about how cool the mansion we'll build together will be!"

Death grimaced. These kids were always the hard ones to break the news to.

"Alright, youngster. How do we play?"

Jimmy's eyes went wide. "Really? You'll play with me?"

Death gave a nod. "I always try to play games with people. It's part of my job."

Jimmy tilted his head. "Oh, like Dream?"

Death shook his head. He knew Dream pretty well. He hadn't remember Dream playing games with anyone. He was more... well, he was more of the loner type. Didn't like to stick around too long. "Oh, no, not Dream. Dream does lots of different things with lots of different people, but he mostly likes to pull strings, ya know? Make things look like they're real, but have you forget all about it later? He's that sort of guy."

Jimmy frowned. "Well, I mean, I guess Dream was a cheater, so yeah..."

Death decided to put it aside. "Anyways, this Minecraft game, how do we play?"

Jimmy immediately perked back up. "Oh, yeah, Minecraft! Well, do you have a computer?"

Death sighed. He'd expected something like this. With a thought, two computers appeared in the void in front of them.

Jimmy grinned. "Yay! Here, let me boot it up for ya real quick, Mister..." Jimmy turned back to Death.

"Mr. Charon." Death responded. He liked to think of Charon as the closest representation to what he actually did. He didn't really cause the death, or even survey a form of afterlife. He was just a transporter. Heck, he didn't even cause the death itself Jimmy had already died hours ago- a bad carbon monoxide leak soon after he'd been put to bed. This was just Death's little parting gift in order to break the news.

"Well, Mr. C, you run like this, can break and build stuff, and you can do all this sort of crafting and stuff! It's super cool!" Jimmy smiled. "They even added frogs recently!"

Death looked at this brand new place on his screen. It was a plain, blocky grass field, with a bunch of tiny animal in it.

"What... how do you win? Is it, like, a strategy game? What rules are there?" Death questioned.

Jimmy was already busy running around, digging a massive dirt hole.

Death acquainted himself with the controls, and with a small bit of resignation, decided to follow him.

Maybe, just maybe, this game would help him break the news.

“What could possibly go wrong?”

It went a little meta around halfway through, and I didn’t really know what to do with it after that, so I just threw audience immersion to the wind and went goofy.

At first, I tried talking to the hooligans in reasonable terms.

>"You know, locking a teenaged girl up in a tower with no social circle or emotional outlet isn't going to do wonders for her mental health" I noted.
>
>"Yeah. We know. Now go away before our captain calls for the archers to shoot you." one of the outer wall guards responded.
>
>I heard the subtle twing of bowstring from on high.
>
>"Alrighty, thanks for your explanation. Have a wonderful day!" I turned to walk away.

Then, I tried coercion.

>"What do you mean, I don't look convincing! Why, I'm this princess's long lost sister!" I tried my best feminine accent.
>
>"Last I remember, princesses didn't have full grown beards and sound like gruff older men in their 40's." a guard noted. "Do you remember meeting the long lost sister of Princess Persephone?"
>
>"No, I didn't." the guard responded. "If I remember right, it was quite a big deal that the king only ever had one daughter. One is none, and all that."
>
>"Yeah, got it." the guard turned to me. "Please leave before our gunmen shoot you down."
>
>I heard the loading of a magazine from on high.
>
>"Very well. I'll be on my way."

Finally, I tried deception.

>"I'm here as an inspector from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, also known as OSHA, to inspect your castle for proper workplace and building practices. Please, if you will, step aside, and let me enter so I can do my job/." I asked politely.
>
>"OSHA won't exist for another couple hundred years, American. Now scram unless you really want our captain to come out and greet you personally." the guard glared at me.
>
>I heard loud, thunderous stomping from much closer than on high.
>
>"Dang it! Too meta. I'll come back tomorrow." I noted.
>
>Groans emanated from both inside the castle and from the outer wall guards.

Finally, the day came. I was tired of this girl being locked up in a tower.

So I did the right thing.

I picked up my phone, and started dialing.

"Hey, this is Greg." Greg said.

"Hey Greg, wanna go raid a tower?" I asked.

"Sure!"

Soon enough Greg and I were at the tower.

I casually walked up to the tower. Archers, gunners, and the sounds of a very buff man yelling came from the other side of the gate.

"Hello there, castle guard." I smiled.

"Hey, I thought I told you to scram." the guard replied.

"What? Me? Scram? What a preposterous thought!" I laughed.

Immediately, as I predicted, gunners, archers shot at me from above.

They didn't stand a chance.

Bullets and arrows all bounced off me hopelessly, before I chugged a potion from my inventory, and started jumping up into the air. Dirt blocks spawned below me, as I turned my B Hopping cheat on. Then, just for funsies, Greg and I started teleporting around the base at random. Men screamed as they were placed in Obi traps, becoming floating corpses in the middle of the sky, all drowned in midair. I swung at someone with my sword, and they caught on fire. But this wasn't the point.

Soon, Greg and I- having thoroughly dispatched their captain- skillfully used admin commands to teleport ourselves into the chamber where they held the girl. I pulled out a pickaxe, destroyed her chains, and set her free.

Moral of the story? Honestly, I don't fucking know.

7 Int, 17 Wis.

Well, he warned him. What else was he supposed to do?

Unironically, though, very good write. I very much want to see this wonderful knight at full strength.

Saved.

This shit slaps.

As a very silly boy who doesn't know anything about bio, could someone smart explain this?

When I was little, I got lost in my local stadium during a game. Thankfully, a staff member recognized me, and invited me up to the central offices so they could call out to my parents. I got the walk off home run ball that game, and I've had that ball ever since.

Mostly just realizing that I liked taking it seriously. I didn’t initially write all too much, but a couple things came together. In 9th grade, my history class had us write essays, and I realized I liked it. Around the same time, I was introduced to DND, and after around a year of just being a player, I started DMing my own friend group. Eventually, I got bored of worldbuilding just one setting, and started writing on my own. I also got recommended r/writingprompts on here, which def helped. Essentially, I just sorta got into writing because of a couple random factors all at the right time. Started taking it more seriously over time, and here I am now.

As has been already said, this is already a thing. Gym Leaders have multiple different teams depending on how many badges you have.

Ok that’s a good twist.

I fucking love it.

Two guys- each has a bit of a crush on each other- meet in a bar, and proceed to get rather drunk. Only problem? Both don’t know the other is gay, and think the other is homophobic.

This is so much more wholesome than where I thought it was going.

Outside of general grammar and tense issues that are normally fixed with time-

The dialogue feels very natural. The way the characters are written feels a little cliche- I’ve seen this character dynamic used for comedy plenty of times before- but it’s well executed, and it doesn’t feel forced, so I like it.

The references to real world properties like Forgotten Realms is a nice touch.

The grizzly could have been played for a bit more comedy, I think. At least dead body humor. The humor comes less from the intrinsic zaniness of the situation and more from the character interactions between our POV character and his (probably high) partner in crime. Heck, I would have runs small gag where, in fact, the mama bear isn’t dead, just angry, because it’s a nearly 2 ton BEAR.

Outside of that, there really isn’t all too much to critique here. It doesn’t go too deeply into genre subversion, it doesn’t exactly throw the prompt in any wild directions, and it’s executed nicely enough. Those aren’t bad things- sometimes, popcorn reading is a little more fun than having to think.

Good Job. I honestly liked it, and it was a fun read.

Loved how you wrote that accent. I could hear the teacher clearly. The prodigy was also immensely emotive, and I could hear just how cocky he was in his voice and the tone of the words. Really well done.

Oh. I like this one.

Mark is a good man.

Oh no, I wanted to see the difference between them. I’m happy that it was different! Heck, I’m a writer myself, and “Goose Chase” as a name and concept alone for a short story gives me something that I can’t wait to write and share with my family and friends.

Thanks!

The genre of cosmic horror has can easily be split into Lovecraftian Horror- horror that is inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft- and Modern Cosmic Horror- horror that is much more existential than it’s compatriot. One of the first papers I wrote in college was an argument of why we needed to officially recognize the growing split in subgenre between the two, and why recognizing the difference between the two would more accurately give readers an expectation of what they were in for.

I wanted to see what you did with the title, since I’ve already thoroughly analyzed the actual book that was written with it.

I wanted to see what you came up with, since I recently did a paper on the requirement to start renaming the cosmic horror genre, and What The Hell Did I Just Read was one of my examples of why we needed to redefine the genre.

What The Hell Did I Just Read