Changes: Halo Fanon:The Weekly

Revision as of 19:40, 26 January 2021

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 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, for users to write in response to. Working with in the length and topic restraints (which could have to do with the 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 ("{{Writer|your username}}") at the top and categorize it "The Weekly" ("[[Category: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. Unless specified otherwise, the word length is ~~1000~~ 800 words, and while you may submit multiple entries for each week, they must be individual entries (while having multiple entries be sequels/prequels to one another is a grey area, they must still work as stories on their own, rather than multiple-part stories).

Then, simply add a link to your entry's page in the scrollbox for the appropriate week for it to be counted. The judge (LegendOfElTopo, currently) will then read the entries, between the following Monday-Wednesday depending on availability, 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.

Current Judge Notes

Feel free to suggest prompts and topics for future weeks - ping me in the Discord if you do.
If posted after the end date, I'll still read and review your work, it just excludes you from the standings for winning the weekly (although in some cases I may shift things to allow for more competition). Yes, this means...
...all previous weekly prompts (including those before I took over) can be written for and I'll give them a look, just bear in mind that it'll be a lower priority than more recent things. That being said...
...I won't be accepting works written beforehand, or in general submissions not written specifically for the Weekly and then added to it afterwards.

Weekly Challenges

Week 192: Dear Humanity

Prompt: One year ago, I dropped a stupid "hindsight is 2020" joke as a prompt; this year, I'm doing the same again, since it isn't any more. On a more serious note - since the 2020-in-review picked out some particularly good character-driven pieces, I'm hoping to pivot a little more towards those these days.

This prompt is all about regrets; things that were done, weren't done, or things that could-have-been. These can be spanning years, decades even - or just muttering "I should not have said that-" as soon as someone leaves the room. Go wild - at least, as wild as you can while aiming for this week's more generous 1000-word target.

Start Date: January 2nd, 2021

End Date: January 17th, 2021

DT 2021: By The Stone by Distant Tide - Winner!
UNSC Transmission 17065J-03 by Auguststorm1945
Bad Day Here by Ahalosniper
Seashells by Actene
Suits of Armour by LastnameSilver - Just to be clear, don't review this.

All of these were really, really good - even once I was done reviewing I hadn't picked, and it was a tossup between all of the entries ~~that weren't a length that scared me away from reading them~~. The win was only clinched by a hair, and I don't tend to say that lightly.

DT 2021: By The Stone by Distant Tide: Every day since 2553? Has Andra been fighting people while in slipspace too? Actually, don't answer that.

Retirement - and not in the "retirement", inverted commas, ONI-arranged sense - is something talked about more than shown, at least from what I see and get around to reading. While I'm not quite sure where this particular bit of touchiness takes place in the grand scheme of Andra-related things (or if this is even "canon" within that, given the name of the story series) it's still a really nice, character-driven short. While there's a lot of tying into other characters and past history, it doesn't feel like those are required knowledge or pre-reading like it's easy to fall into, and the regrets tie into it strongly. Being a nobody, being normal, being changed from the gung-ho child soldier of yesteryear builds into a sense of closure that's still tinged with the pathos of talking to those absent.

For me, that last line is honestly *chef's k i s s*. That, combined with the balanced weight and delicateness of the descriptions (in spite of the slight clumsiness of expositing Andra's past-to-date), and the slight touches like the Colonial Literature and related chatter, are what really make this piece.

UNSC Transmission 17065J-03 by Auguststorm1945: Damn, were you the last 30 times I posted a message- or documentation-based prompt? :P

Far shorter than what the prompt asks for - never mind from what I expected - but an excellent piece nontheless. This is a short but very sweet piece that's tight, to-the-point, and close to the prompt while in an unexpected direction. Plus, it plays right into my own favourite interpretation of ONI as cold but not unnecessarily cruel, and caring more about Getting Shit Done™ than overtly castigating or making an example of people for something that's already been done. Also very nice touches are the undertones that, in spite of this colossal cock-up, STONE HILL is still competent or valuable enough that keeping them on is preferable to a token resignation - plus, the header, names, and mixture of curt and clinical in IRONWOOD's tone make this a piece that's far stronger than its word count would suggest.

Bad Day Here by Ahalosniper: Well, now you've got me listening to the HW soundtrack on loop again, dammit.

While a little more loose on the prompt than some of the other pieces here, I still really quite enjoyed this, and the character dynamics between Machete and what I can only assume to be their handler. The dialogue isn't hugely original in its ideas - the team bantering with Amber and Erin's pep talk later are both relatively by-numbers - it's still very nicely executed, feeling organic and believable and comfortably steering clear of the cliches it could fall into. While that makes up the bulk of the work, the opening half is wonderfully vivid, sharp third-person descriptions and the surgeon not pulling any punches bring some colourful images into mind, and the admission of a cock-up by superiors is an unexpected touch.

Seashells by Actene: But did he keep the shell-?

This is certainly the prompt played straight, arguably in most direct way out of all of the prompts. Like Tide's, it's something that does feel like further knowledge, context, background would lend this piece an extra supporting pillar - but like Tide's, it still stands plenty strong on its own. The dynamic between the three, particularly how Stray (it still feels weird calling him that) stands relative to the other two, is an interesting thing in itself and does lend a bit of awkwardness to the process of reading and getting the goings-on, alternating between dogsbody and close companion, but either way still makes the latter half of things really good. The only thing I would say is that the timeskip is a little awkward; even marking it with a line would've helped separate the two halves, but on first read it did make me double back to see if there's anything I missed. Still, a very nice piece, especially with the melancholy tinge to it.

Suits of Armour by LastnameSilver: Is this Mucho Texto™️ out of spite for me saying that I was still open to an entry from you?

I guess me saying that was really

*equip sunglasses*

opening a pandora's box.

😎😎😎

Week 193: The Kids Are Alright

Prompt: Partly inspired by Tide's interesting playground game, and partly from how I actually had fun writing something to this theme last year: this week's prompt is all about the young'uns. Something about children, about youth, with a pretty broad scope thematically - after all, kids can be kind, they can be cruel, they can be innocent or jaded, and the Orion Arm has a vast range of different environments to grow up in. Still, I'd rather it at least be something in line with an image of childhood rather than just "takes place with young characters". In particular, while young, early Spartan candidates being taught the best places to stab someone isn't really what I'm after - and while lighter moments like in my piece above would work, more mundane human (or alien!) kids growing up would be plenty welcome too!

Looking to be a little shorter and sweeter this time; 800 words is your target.

Start Date: January 11th, 2021

End Date: January 24th, 2021

Week 194: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Prompt: Something dug up from the past - that's the theme of this week's prompt. Whether at a individual, organisational, or even governmental, perhaps some time capsules should stay buried. Some memories may be too harsh to cling to; some scandals or heresies should stay buried. Maybe they're not even horrible revelations to their people or institutions, just a reminder of how they used to be better, of how far they've fallen. Maybe they're painful notes of what they've lost. Maybe they'll be used as impetus for change - or maybe they'll be buried again, deeper this time. It's all up to you, in the space of 800 words; although as always, that's a target, with a fair amount of flexibility above or below.

Start Date: January 26th, 2021

End Date: February 7th, 2021

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-*[[DT 2021: By The Stone]] by {{Name|Distant Tide}}
+*'''[[DT 2021: By The Stone]] by {{Name|Distant Tide}} - Winner!'''
 *[[UNSC Transmission 17065J-03]] by {{Name|Auguststorm1945}}
 *[[Bad Day Here]] by {{Name|Ahalosniper}}
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+All of these were really, ''really'' good - even once I was done reviewing I hadn't picked, and it was a tossup between all of the entries <s>that weren't a length that scared me away from reading them</s>. The win was only clinched by a hair, and I don't tend to say that lightly.
 *[[DT 2021: By The Stone]] by {{Name|Distant Tide}}: ''Every'' day since 2553? Has Andra been fighting people while in slipspace too? Actually, don't answer that.
 ::Retirement - and not in the "retirement", inverted commas, ONI-arranged sense - is something talked about more than shown, at least from what I see and get around to reading. While I'm not quite sure where this particular bit of touchiness takes place in the grand scheme of Andra-related things (or if this is even "canon" within that, given the name of the story series) it's still a really nice, character-driven short. While there's a lot of tying into other characters and past history, it doesn't feel like those are required knowledge or pre-reading like it's easy to fall into, and the regrets tie into it strongly. Being a nobody, being normal, being changed from the ''gung-ho child soldier of yesteryear'' builds into a sense of closure that's still tinged with the pathos of talking to those absent.
+::For me, that last line is honestly  ''*chef's   k i s s*''. That, combined with the balanced weight and delicateness of the descriptions (in spite of the slight clumsiness of expositing Andra's past-to-date), and the slight touches like the Colonial Literature and related chatter, are what really make this piece.
-::And that last line is honestly  ''*chef's   k i s s*'' , too.