The bean, it must be found. For MHD's Fairytales contest.

I have no idea why I wrote this. All I can say in my defense is that it seemed like a good idea at the ti--wait no that's a lie, I said, repeatedly that this was stupid and shameful every time I mentioned working on it.

The truth is I needed to publish something before the end of the year and there is CLEARLY a burning need for wolf stories in the psyche of children using the internet. But then they write them badly, or make their wolves behave like clans of cats. So here is a simple straightfoward story of a young wolf leaving his pack in search of a better life. Maybe no one will ever feel the need to write another one now, or if nothing else maybe this will give them ideas for how to do it in slightly more minimum-standards-meeting ways.

Final conclusion however is that writing about some dumb animal with no agency is not something I'd recommend.

If you don't know what this is for, then it isn't for you.

A short, educational piece. Please remain sensitive and respectful in the comment section. (I'd hate to have to report you to an admin for bullying me.)

(DO NOT READ if you're at all easily offended or lacking in a sense of humor. There's nothing graphic at all in here, but seriously, I still cannot stress it enough, this story is not for you.)



Dedicated to the good people of COG.

Oh, and the themes I listed were all from Alpha Centauri. I figured that given the ages involved it wouldn't be guessed and that Endmaster would be the only one to know right away. But the Bezros and others made some hilarious attempts, going with everything from Mass Effect and Bioshock to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Since we seem to once again have a landslide vote, although anyone is still welcome to leave comments, I'll go ahead and call this early. Congrats to @Petros for the wholly unsurprising win for Story B. I think you said it took you what, an hour and a half? The end result was understandably a little rough around the edges, but traitorously neighing cultists and some other typos aside, it simply worked the best as a complete story and was entertaining besides. I enjoyed the mental image of the improbably backflipping cultist, and there was a little edge of absurb humor to it all that was a difficult thing to balance, but I felt like it worked here. Suranna with Story A had overall decent writing, but the pacing and the way info was dispensed was very uneven as others have pointed out. And the big moment the plot turned (taking a picture of a syringe with a mundane phone, the story needed to be set on a USSR era military base on Venus for that?) was a little underwhelming. And also raised some distracting questions to me about just how sloppy security on this military base had to be. Story C, I have to confess: that wasn't the title of the story, but it was the title of the PM that Bezro sent me that contained the story, and it seemed like it would be funny to use it. The actual story was kinda...not a story, but a summary of a story sort of vaguely and uninterestingly explained to a protagonist with no involvement who did nothing but sit there. So, there are some story craft type things to work on. Educational moment for the children: Setting and Characters, Conflict, Rising Tension, Climax and Resolution. Go down this checklist and you have a story. Or if you prefer: Petros wins, the rest of you suck, there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe pick up a used belt from a thrift store, in these times of economic hardship it's cheaper than a rope. Anyway, entrants reply here for your commendations.