Halo Fanon:The Weekly

The Weekly is a community project in the form of a series of micro-fiction contests, inspired by the discontinued Community Writing Competitions on Halo Waypoint. Each week, users can challenge themselves to write a short (few hundred words, usually) prose response to a prompt chosen at the start of the week by the competition's judge. At the week's end, the judge selects a winner to receive a shiny new Weekly Winner eraicon on their entry's page, and the entry will then be displayed on Recent Changes for the next week for all to easily see and read.

The project was conceived in response to a long-standing downturn in prose writing on the site, in hopes of encouraging more prose by presenting a painless, easily-attainable length as a target instead of a hopelessly-long novel length. The ideas the writers incorporate to hone their craft under such constraints might then become the seeds for events their own characters go through, or even be worked into whole other long stories.

How To Participate
At the beginning of each week, a new prompt will be posted on this page, including a maximum word count, for users to write in response to. Working with in the length and topic restraints (which could have to do with theme, or subject, or writing style like "only dialogue"), users then write their response and create a new page on which to post it. Remember to include a Writer Template (" ") at the top and categorize it "The Weekly" ("  ") at the bottom. A paragraph at the top can be added to introduce the piece and context for it without going towards the word count, so long as there's a horizontal line (" ") between to make set them apart distinctly.

Then, simply add a link to your entry's page in the scrollbox for the appropriate week for it to be counted. The judge (User:Ahalosniper) will then read the entries at the end of the week, verifying they fit the prompt and word count, and pick a winner for the week. Bear in mind, the judge's decision may be based on subjective judgements, but good spelling, grammar, and punctuation go a long way towards impressing by presenting a professional and easy-to-read appearance. Winners will then be given a unique Weekly Winner eraicon and displayed on the Recent Changes page.

Users can also visit the talk page to suggest prompts and topics for future weeks.

Week 1: FIRST!
Prompt: For the first time trying this out, why not have something that matches thematically with something new? In 300 words or less, write something that details a first time for a character, whether it's the first time a character takes a life, or comes face to face with the Covenant, or something more personal. An (ineligible) example is provided to give you a guide to how you should format when adding an entry. Have some fun with it! Cutoff for this challenge is the night of Saturday, January 16th, 2015. Entries=

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 * Choice by
 * What I get from this story is that Ania's making a choice, to either spare the Unggoy (and possibly other?) stowaways, or kill them to ensure she saves herself. Naturally, with the word limit, there's not much room for context, but if it were to be expanded, I'd like to know why Ania considers Unggoy lives at all, when some Sangheili we've seen will through Unggoy out an airlock for complaining. Also, the choice she makes is a little unclear. I assume her last line of dialogue means she intends to spare her hitchhikers, but part of me says she could be talking to herself.
 * Weakness by
 * You're missing some punctuation around the dialogue, there. Periods at the end and commas where they meet the prose. So this is the first time Tal's given his berserker drugs, though I'm not sure if it's Red Sand, given the name and that this substance was injected. Because that's the focus, I'm surprised a larger fraction of the word limit wasn't given to describing it flowing through his body from the injection point. Elites do have two hearts pumping blood, but even then, it seems to take effect very suddenly.
 * Vengeance by
 * A general piece of advice commonly given for writing is to show, not tell, and I think this entry could benefit very well from that. There's a clear story to it, with Carl's first kills, but very little description to help us see and feel what's going on. For example, Carl's father gesturing; I'm not sure what sort of a gesture says that or what it looks like. Describing how his arm moved would better get across what's going on, using sensory details.
 * The Quiet by
 * Conversely, here's a piece with very little happening, but a lot of sensory detail. We experience everything through our senses, so describing things in terms of images or sounds or even smells go a long way towards making a reader able to envision something through text. I also want to call out the couple details which hint at other things without needing to take up time in the word limit to specifically state them; mainly that by the wine glasses we know one character's had much more to drink than the other, and that cigarettes are a classic film school technique for implications I'll leave you to discover. Perhaps in part because of I can use the fact these strategies were employed as a teaching opportunity, that makes this one my pick of the week.
 * Just A Job by
 * Repetition can be a useful tool to emphasize one particular detail or thought, as seen here. Everything in the piece relates to the first-time act of this character murdering a fellow serviceman, including his justifying it to himself and to the reader, which seems to break down near the end as he realizes he wouldn't, and likely won't, forgive himself. It's also a neat look into how time and length of text can relate to each other, as this uses all 300 words to cover the span of maybe a second or two of in-world time. It's also missing a "could" which would put it over the limit, but I'm gonna overlook that, judge's authority.
 * Shot At Dawn by
 * While the entry is far over the word limit, I can still respond to it. For my part, I usually put thoughts of characters in italics rather than quotation marks, because then the thoughts look exactly the same as dialogue and are hard to distinguish, especially when the dialogue tag, the part that tells who's saying/thinking it, comes after the line/thought, like with Sanok's first thought here. In the same vein, since the thought is stylized in the same way as dialogue, there are a couple instances here where different characters speak (or think) in the same paragraph with each other, which can make it hard to keep track of who's saying what. Something for consideration.
 * Graduation Present by
 * An excellent choice for the prompt, as it's the first appearance of something fairly major to the character's ongoing story that doesn't demand such an introduction, just found one conveniently in this project's prompt. It also does a neat job of doubling down on the prompt, as it's not just the first time Simon and Jian are introduced to the armor, but the first time Simon has something that he can call definitively his own, at least since he began training, anyway.
 * Eclipse by
 * I feel a bit more show could be done here, but I like that this piece takes the approach of the Covenant being terrifying upon first-time encountering, since Halo 5's opening cutscene kinda cuts down any reason to fear the average Covenant soldier completely. If you wanted to take this even further, I might suggest having it be something as low as Jackals or Grunts that are causing him problems, bringing those guys back to the point of Fall of Reachs beginning where they overwhelmed and slaughtered Helljumpers.

Week 2: No 'I' in Team
Prompt: You’ve heard that old ‘strength of the wolf is the pack’ bit before, right? Well, in 500 words or less, bumping the limit up by a bit, let's see you put that bit of wisdom to use, showing off characters working together whether by force or by choice. With Halo 5’s emphasis on co-op, a Spartan team working together could be prime material, but other less-conventional team-ups have plenty of opportunity to be interesting. A Spartan with an AI, for example, or humans working with Covenant species, and no one says the partnership has to go well. What partnerships give you the most ideas to write about? Deadline for this challenge is midnight on Saturday, January 23rd, 2015 (Pacific Time).

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 * War games by
 * A very straightforward approach to the topic, literally taking on teamwork as a series of military maneuvers, and I appreciate that there's sort of a connection to the War Games on Infinity, though I don't see a definite confirmation that's where they are. What I have trouble with, though, is the lack of named or identified characters. I realize this was a definite choice by the author, but I don't think it works best. Without someone to empathize with, even just seeing through the eyes of as a point-of-view character without a name, there's no one with an ongoing story who's gonna retain the lessons learned of the piece's events or have any character growth as a result. This training exercise, then, becomes something that happened after which everyone went back to their daily lives. If there's not ongoing effects of the events, or a character who we get to understand or see change a bit from them, what's there to make the reader care about those events?
 * Talista Nights by
 * There's very little context for this piece, not just because there's not a header, but because the articles of the characters involved have nowhere near reached that point in either case, so I'll share what I know and say this is two rogue Spartans, S-II and an S-III, meeting up what seems for one of their first times. What takes center-stage is the combat, and so the teamwork element comes in the form of comparing how each one fights. As you'd expect, Riker has a lot more raw brawn at his disposal to throw around than Dyne, which is noticeable, but since writing's not a visual medium, I think some more explicit description of the fact could've helped with the impressions. For example, saying, "Riker was all brawn, throwing a punch, while Dyne used their numbers against them by dodging in between" etc etc.
 * Enemies Old and New by
 * Now here's a good example of that character change occurring, or if not change, at least an interesting point for one of the characters because she has inner conflict going on that's on display for the reader. Suitably, that conflict springs from the topic at hand, which is her teaming up; specifically with an Elite, who S-IIIs like Cassandra naturally aren't too keen on letting live, nevermind fighting other humans with, but she's able to set even a grudge that deep aside for the time being. That's the kind of ongoing conflict a reader gets interested in seeing go on and resolve, which I do believe makes it my pick of the week.
 * Teamwork by
 * I like that with the Jackals' use of a phalanx you've had the teamwork angle show up twice over, though I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be something new as Fall of Reach had them doing the same. Then again, it could very well be the first time for this character, and I'm not sure what year this is taking place, so it's not that it's really out of place. The action, however, feels very much like it's from straight out of playing the games. Anyone who's played (and I figure a few around here have) knows the mechanical process shooting a Jackal's arm in the notch of their shield becomes, but it doesn't necessarily make for good reading. "three supercombine explosions" and "shot the last Jackal" tell us what happened, but don't show us. Heck, the supercombines could make for a load of good images, "bursting into clouds of bloody pink haze" and such.
 * The Error by
 * Obviously, we're getting some second-guessing by Xiphos of Andrew's leadership here, which is why I'm not sure with some of the later "Yessir" response and his forgetting the name of a formation, we don't get some effected groans on behalf of the team. One supposes it's because they're Spartan trainees and they're learning already to follow orders even when they don't agree with them, but then there's no commentary on that either. This entry does hit the word limit exactly, though, so I imagine it could be a space consideration.
 * Distraction by
 * You've done a good job here with getting into Dahm's head as he's under the pressure of keeping a criminal with potential murderous intent calm. He's worried about the potential outcomes, and has an eye on the ongoing progress of his fellow officers as they get closer to the point where the burden's no longer on his shoulders, but we don't get much from those other officers. They've got parts they're playing in the same operation, but the focus is mainly on Dahm as he's just waiting for the others to take over, at which point he steps away. There's teamwork going on, but it's not the most direct between two parties we're getting characterization from.

Week 3: There Are Many Like It
Prompt: Tools are very personal things. Habits form around them, and humans at least are creatures of habit. For example, maybe there's a pen you have that needs to be scribbled with a bit to make the ink start running. Tools can tell a lot about a person, for example a Spartan tailoring their weapon to their exact preferences or a wealthy individual having even their shirt buttons come from the finest brass; and vice versa, tools can sometimes effect their owners as they adapt to using them. In 500 words or under, give us a scene of your character using their particular tools of choice, and think about how those tools might lend some insight into who they are and how they do what they do with their tools. Could be their favorite gun, or an old wrench, or anything else. Could even flip the prompt by having the tool in question be a standard-issue weapon which they have no attachment to, and reflect somehow on that.

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 * My New Right Arm by
 * Neat use of the title as the last line. It brings the piece back around nicely in a matter-of-fact way that follows, at least in my experience, how dealing with painful moments can go. Stability to instability and back again. However, there could be some proofreads done here and there. Sometimes it's a mis-used, rather than misspelled, word that might not show up in Microsoft Word as a mistake; "join" instead of "joint", "loose" instead of "lose", etc. Those are just little errors, though; what I'd see to more is sometimes sentences go on for too long. For example, the first sentence seems strange when that last phrase beyond the second comma is added, because that's another complete sentence and seems strange strung together. I've got a tendency to do that kind of thing myself, thinking one phrase sounds good coupled with another, the end of which sounds good coupled with another, until I've got a train of them too long all together.
 * Who The Hell Names Their Gun? by
 * I see that Game of Thrones reference, and I'll allow it. Zoey more angry she's caught than embarrassed, Simon never quite grateful, as an older brother to a younger sister I can confirm they're certainly in character for siblings. The quick change for Zoey at the end, though, the implication she's been playing at remorse the whole time, does throw me just a little, though, giving me a younger impression of her than I usually have. But then, with our timelines the way they are, who can tell who's how old when anymore, eh? What with word limits, consider if this is ever used in a longer work Zoey getting angry and storming off with the etching unfinished, and Simon then finishing it himself and Zoey seeing it completed. What'd that mean for each of them?

Week 4: Flat Tire
Prompt: One of the pivotal moments of Halo: Combat Evolveds development was when the designers managed to get just one vehicle, the classic Warthog, working on the beach of Assault on the Cartographer. Just driving that around by itself they recognized was fun, and we've been powersliding that machine gun-turreted jeep everywhere we can force it into ever since. Vehicles of all kinds are a big part of Halo, and at times criminally underused; starships cry out for Battlestar Galactica-esque dramas, and squadrons of Longswords could play out the same as X-Wing dogfights. In 500 words or less, give us something that revolves around the vehicles of the Halo-verse, whether land or space-bound.

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 * Takeoff by
 * THREE WORDS OVER, BRODIE. How dare. But I'm already here, so here we go. There's one point you use "suit" for MJOLNIR twice in a sentence which is just something that crops up as redundant while reading. The descriptions are good, though; oilstained jumpsuits and such, and that does extend to the vehicle in question for the piece, using the character's personalization of it to associate it with her, make it a personal thing, etc. I would, however, recommend going a bit further with the descriptions of people to make sure a memorable impression gets across, even if it's cliched, so I can remember characters at least as "baldy" and "the redhead". "Gantry" is the word you're probably looking for with that piece of armor-assembly machinery. At least, that's what I've come to like using.
 * Air Superiority by
 * I might have ended the sentence ending with "that firestorm" with just "it" instead, as there's not an image setting up the city beforehand, and that on its own just kinda sticks out. The vehicle here does feature prominently, though it's secondary to Venter's meditation on what he's doing there. It's a snippet, naturally, but apart from Venter thinking the Marines below were his comrades not that long ago, we don't have much to tell us the context of the piece; I can only assume it's during the Mamore Insurrection at some point. Can't really add much in the way to its prose; Venter and the other rebels aren't described in detail, but Venter shows up plenty of places elsewhere and the others are unnamed and don't need that detail anyway.

Week 5: Close Talking
Prompt: While I can't speak for everyone, Halo 5's Hunt the Truth campaign got me super-excited. I liked Ben Giraud, I felt sympathy for the predicaments he found himself in, and Fero's encore season maintained their level of quality all the way through. So, perhaps because of their format, you should go back and listen to a few episodes to pick up tips and tricks for this challenge: with 500 words or less, write up something very dialogue-heavy. It doesn't have to quite take screenplay or audio transcript format, and anything that's all-dialogue will need to do something in their lines that identifies who the participants are, but see if you can make it as dialogue-heavy as possible. Who knows? Perhaps there are a few people around here with decent mics who'd be interested in making a short Youtube recording out of some entry. Entries=

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 * A Scent of Blasphemy by
 * I'm surprised you didn't take the opportunity to start on a line of dialogue, instead with a paragraph's worth of prose, but setting up the scene in such a way does allow you to keep using more character speech later. In the first two spoken lines, though, you've got a bit of repetition with 'today'. Good choice to go with Sangheili, since their dialogue is so accented and unusual; already, for a reader familiar with the Halo-verse, you'll have them reading the dialogue in deep, wort-worty voices, though perhaps this is just that my reading doesn't match up with the voice you're hearing in your head, but some of your word choices didn't quite match up with what I think of for Sangheili.
 * Extract From Oblation Bearer Interrogation Room Security Recording by
 * Hah, good call on the old RvB Irk styling. Still, having the names in front of each line script-style takes out the opportunity to hear the voices and discover through its dialogue who they are. Diana's in good form, I see, though I think Simon's a little quick to have her getting under his skin when she's providing no evidence of her claims. Then again, getting under Simon's skin and into his head is one of Diana's signatures. Naturally, the whole process of turning Simon to her will this time is going to take a while, but she's off to a good start.
 * Slaughter on Mortintoj by
 * Neat to see someone finally incorporating images in these things; without advancing the wordcount, it allows you to put more information across to the reader. The piece is, however, nearly double the word limit, but the dialogue in it is looking good. Once in a while, there's a sentence that runs on a little too long with too many phrases between commas, but that's not hard to revise. One suggestion I'd make would be instead of naming and thinking of the interviewer as merely Reporter, give them a name and a position of their own they're coming from, like Ben Giraud or Petra Janecek.
 * SFTE Test Audio Log 4/28/2291 by
 * Aha, here we are. A one-hundred-percent dialogue piece, and an interesting choice of moment to elaborate on. I do think you could have given us a little more characterization, perhaps through giving some of the characters' thoughts of their own outside the processes of the countdown, and somebody else telling them to stay focused, then ask if that one's nervous, etc. etc. For the combination of taking this challenge to the extreme and going with it to an obscure but important moment in the history of the Halo universe, I think this is my pick of the week.

Week 6: Yes, Sensei
Prompt: The responses to last week's challenge got me thinking. There's basically only a few ways you can really open a piece of writing; with a name, for example, which you then have to give context to so a reader will care about who this name belongs to; with an image that'll catch the reader's mind's eye; with a line of dialogue without an image or setup that's just interesting enough without context that you have to read on. That's what I want to get at this week. You can take on any subject you want this week, in 500 words or less, but I want you to really consider your opening line, the very first thing that the reader sees and what needs to hook them to keep them reading, and make sure you have reasons for making that your first line. See what you make of it. Entries=

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 * Underlying Motivation by Andromeda Vadum
 * Who's I? I imagine this must have appealed to you in some way as a first line, but consider, the rest of this piece is told in the third-person. So who would be the "I" in "or should I really say"? It doesn't fit with the rest and takes me out of what's going on rather than get me into it. There are also some grammatical errors, "loose" to "lose" (happens all the time, we had an RP called "Loosing Hope" once) and "had saw" to "had seen", you might want to keep a better eye on.
 * Nothing by DarthNicky
 * A little reminiscent of Keyes' thoughts in The Flood, but then given the same subject matter, it's hardly a surprise. I might have recommended a little more sensory detail as the character starts remembering, like descriptions of just what his loved ones' faces looked like, heck, even a smell as he realizes the Flood's absorbed his body and he's no longer in control of/connected to the organs his senses get input from. A good choice for opening, then, and nicely tied in with the title. Pick of the week.
 * Hunted by
 * Second person? Interesting choice. Although, the "came" in your first line and "continued", "said" and a few other places later on are past-tense, where the rest is in-the-moment present-tense. My guess is the robot is a Spartan? I'm never given enough detail to be sure, but it seems like that'd make this character an Innie. Good work with the second-person, I suppose these prompts are a handy place to experiment with.
 * Shortcut by
 * Decidedly a catchy opener with the dialogue approach. A couple paragraphs in, though, when we get that elucidating explanation of where they are and why, it all comes out in a bit of a run-on sentence, but your timing with it is spot-on. Great interplay between the team members, and goes from dark to darker by the end. I'd be invested for more.
 * Brandon Smith by
 * How dare you exceed my arbitrary length requirements, Lomi. Good opening with a smell as a sensory detail, but we never really pick that up again to get a good, gruesome look at what it's coming from (though we do get the recurring theme of constants). There's mention of corpses, corpses Smith knew, even, but an example of just whose body it was he hunkered down next to would've hammered both points home.

Week 7: Supporting Role
Prompt: Hmmm. Seems there's a much bigger turnout when I open up prompts to looser requirements. Perhaps I'll skew more of those in the future to allow for more freedom, but this week, humor me with another specific prompt. One writing exercise that might do some good for your own projects is to consider your characters from someone else's point of view; naturally, you have an idea of the persona the character has, how other people in the universe perceive them. Perhaps it's a scary aura of foreboding, or someone so naturally charismatic they can't help being chummy with everyone they meet. In 500 words or less, give us some insight into one character through another—what does another person typically see your character as? It may be helpful to use a throwaway minor character who meets yours for just a minute, or alternatively someone familiar enough to see their faults. Give it a shot.

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 * Analysis by
 * I think you go on a bit too long about how much Tyler's willing to sacrifice himself in the third paragraph. Most of it's merely telling us what he would do, not showing us by giving examples to illustrate how he's done so. Reads a bit like you're glorifying him. Also really not sure why he'd have a feeling he'd need to sacrifice one of his team on the upcoming mission (and why, if he's so self-sacrificing, putting himself in their place isn't his first thought), but given the word count, there are naturally things that can't be included. While I wish you'd spent less on Tyler's weapons and more on Varun, Tyler's concern for him does feel genuine, and for that, I think this makes my pick of the week.
 * Assessing One's Foe by
 * I'm not sure what other names a Sangheili would call a human, but I think you end up using "human" and "the human" a bit too often, as it gets repetitive around the third paragraph. Since he's in charge, perhaps the "human commander" and shorten to "commander" in some places? Also, while I think it's possible for an ODST to outdo a Sangheili in close combat, the way it happens here might be a little too easy. Sangheili are on par with Spartans as far as speed and strength goes, so I feel like one knee to the midsection's not gonna be enough to throw him off.
 * A Disappointing Monster by
 * Fun angle to take. I might recommend changing a bit in the third paragraph to "Patches of stubble, the sign of a sloppy shave" rather than "signs". I read it more like the "patches of stubble" is one object, rather than each patch an independent sign. They're all on the same face, after all. There's more physical description here than the others, which on its own would give us a picture and not an idea of the person, but it's tied together what those features suggest to Tegla, which blends the picture and the idea nicely.
 * Hero of Victoria by
 * Glad to see canon characters being made use of, especially those new from Halo 5 which really need the characterization. With this piece, though, I feel as though you're making Wright a "better than the protagonist" character. Wright's being portrayed as a villain here, so building him up as a frightening threat like this makes sense, but Locke's character (what little canon gives us) is one of stoic pragmatism, so for him to be so afraid of this rebel officer doesn't fit with my preconception of Locke. I kinda connect this with how I felt about Palmer post-Halo 4; everyone hated how much she was built up, so we wanted to write stories that undercut her and built up our own characters as superior. In hindsight, though, building up her canon character by having her beat my own characters felt more rewarding.

Week 8: Legendary Friends
Prompt: So keying off one of last week's entries (which I'll perhaps have to do more often, now), this week's challenge is to write something under 500 words that makes use of canon characters from the Halo-verse. There are a lot of new characters as of Halo 5 that get very little characterization in the games. Each of Fireteam Osiris, for instance, gets their own source of media they come from, whether a book, comic, or live-action series, but apart from that bit of assigned origin story, not much has been written or said about them yet. This could include your characters cross paths with famous canon characters (whether as friends or not) or you may choose to focus entirely on canon character. We do have a lot more focus on original characters than canons on this site, don't we? Entries=

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 * Captured by
 * At one point, you say directly that the guard "was about to shoot at her helmet", making the point-of-view omniscient because the reader knows for certain what both the guard and Carris intend to do, so I have to ask, what was this guard's plan? I can understand the Insurrection taking a Spartan prisoner if they got the chance, there's a lot to learn from them and their armor. So why's this guy going to throw all that away by shooting her? If they'd let this guy kill her so quickly, why risk keeping her alive at all? If this was meant to be just Carris' thought, however, of when she thought he was going to shoot, it'd make more sense, and since we're with Carris' point of view by joining her just as she wakes up, it'd make more sense to be a point-of-view limited to her thoughts and what she can see and hear. There are a couple things that I think could warrant a proofread, like "main" instead of "man", and I'd recommend saying "five to six" instead of "5-6" when writing prose.
 * Snake in the Grass by
 * Only two candy bars in an hour? That'd be remarkable restraint by my standards if I had a sack full of candy bars. Anyway, you're a little more than fifty words over the limit, but if you're going to go above it, I recommend taking more time to have your story chew the scenery. When Jones leaves the canyon, he "followed the tracks the Warthogs and Scorpions had left. He had been walking for about an hour when..." Show me some of that. What alien landscapes does he pass in that hour of walking on Installation 04, what carnage besides tire tracks have been left behind after the battle? Does he find himself having to duck any leftover Covenant patrols before the main events of the piece? And how was he finally killed? If you're filling in a blank spot of a character's history this way, it seems to me the best way to do that would be to illustrate it with a lot of detail. Fun idea: have his last thought be he wished he'd eaten the rest of the candy bars.

Week 9: Make A Wish
Prompt: Everyone wants something. Beyond the general vengeance upon the Covenant, follow the UNSC's orders to kill something, or become the galaxy's most powerful supervillain, there are things driving your characters to achieve greater things, to help others selflessly or selfishly, or that just keep them going from one day to the next. If your character wanted one thing above all else, what would it be? In 500 words or less, write up something that helps to illustrate it, whether it shows them doing something desperate or morally grey to get whatever it is, or letting their guard down to someone else just for a moment to show what they want and can't have. Doesn't have to be a big galaxy-changing desire, either. For just a moment, the one thing they desire above all else could be the last donut behind the glass counter display.

Behind the Scenes

 * Each week's challenge is named after an online credits challenge from one of the Halo games.