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Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

9) A romantic winter horror genre splice.

At first, there was quite a bit more focus on the horror element.  I took the story... well... how you'd expect someone to take a romantic/horror genre splice at first.  I was going to name it "The Way" or something equally lame, and have it be about a man obsessing over the loss of their significant other.  They were going to be implied to be real, and then the horror element of the story would've been finding out at the end through various means that they were DEAD all along!  Oooh, scary.

That was before the greyhound, and before my brain was skewed by the dehydration and hunger that would follow for the next 11 hours.

Now, the story is about a man who takes a woman on a Disney+ and Thrust date, and, depending on what movie you choose to watch, all sorts of horrific reprocussions shall spill out of your television.  I find this idea infinitely easier to write about, and also... scarier?  I'm thinking... take Sully from Monsters' Inc., stuff him into a Lovecraftian morphing machine, voila.  Nightmare fuel.

More updates to come.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago
I'm glad you didn't die.

Surprised you're not writing about being stranded on a bus with your beloved when bad things start to happen. You've done plenty of research.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Thanks Mizal.  I considered it, but during the journey I was already writing down the narrative of the greyhound trip anyways.  Maybe itll be refined, polished, and posted somewhere.  Really captures the internal rage of the moment.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

I am frightened by the possibilities. Especially if they have the brave little toaster. I'm looking forward to the story.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Never actually watched Brave Little Toaster, maybe now's the time.  If there's a winter scene in it, it might make an appearance.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

That's what he gets for coming to visit me ON Thanksgiving day and not coming the day before, which would have been smarter! 

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

BUT I was just in time to force you into this contest!  So I see it as a net gain.  

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago
Commended by mizal on 12/1/2019 11:51:51 AM

Not a story update, but important nonetheless!

This is the tale of the Greyhound from Hell.  

You see, once upon a time, a foolish motherfucker decided to take a trip on a bus.  Not his usual fare, the short bus, but rather a Greyhound.  Typically, this motherfucker had pretty good luck with his travels, slight delays at most.  But he was in for it, oh yes he was.  For he was about to take the San Bernardino Hellhound.

What was once a hopeful trip, sparked by the consumption of edibles, turned into a dastardly and nasty affair.  Black ice plagued the roads, and the people on the bus began to grow reckless.  Cars crashed, and drew the freeway to a grinding halt.

The poor motherfucker tapped his foot impatiently, as his stomach began to grumble.

intercom crackles 

The motherfucker heard the cheery voice of the driver, and hoped for the best.

"Well, I don't know what to say, folks, but if you're in the industry as long as I've been, then you know the people who have it the worst out here are the truck drivers, who can't meet their mileage quotas because of the black ice."

The motherfucker rolled his eyes, as the guy next to him complained loudly on the phone.

"This driver nigga keeps talking about shit we don't care about.  I wanna hear about detours and shit."

The bus shuddered to a complete stop, and remained that way for fifteen minutes, while the men who'd consumed the edibles in the backseat began to shake.  The poor motherfucker realized he was now trapped between a mountain and edible crazed men, with no discernable way out.  Another thirty minutes passed before he came to his senses, and realized that he had been cannibalizing his own thumb.

The bus began moving slowly again, and the motherfucker got his hopes up again.  He released the grip on the man who was unlucky enough to be sitting next to him, leaving the man dead in the bus aisle, bruises on his throat.  Despite having committed murder, everyone else on the bus was so frustrated that they turned a blind eye.  The bus was moving slowly, but more consistently now, and the motherfucker couldn't help but wonder whether his personal hellhound was finally finished.  But as they slowed down to a stop again, he knew the truth.

The motherfucker spotted a lone car sitting on the side of the road, having slipped off the icy path.  He wished them a swift death. 

As the bus crept its way past the first mile marker in nearly an hour, the dead body in the aisle began to look rather appetizing.  He considered walking to a nearby gas station, but when he looked out his window, he realized he was beyond the point of return.  The snow and ice was far to treacherous to traverse.

The motherfucker began to fantasize now, about taking over the bus and barreling through the traffic, taking the driver's skullcap and turning it inside out to use it as his new beanie.  He imagined all the other cars exploding on impact with the bus at his command, and their inhabitants being sent straight to hell.  It helped pass the time.

The bus began to move again, and the motherfucker finally seemed to be home free.  As the hellhound rolled up to the bus station, the motherfucker stepped off, glad to be rid of the infernal trap.  He checked his phone.  A four hour journey had turned into an eleven hour one.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago
Well there's a commendation for your suffering. I can only assume you arranged alternate means of traveling home, or at the very least packed this time with the expectation of spending the rest of the winter living in a bus in the mountains, just in case.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Oh yeah.  Headed back via greyhound again, but way better stocked this time.  Gonna plan to grab an aisle seat too.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago
That is a fat F

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Setting up the story with some characters.  I liked the idea of scrolling through Tinder to choose your date, and then having the eventual movie that you watch be directly correlated with their personality.  These are obviously pretty basic characters, I don't really anticipate anyone going through radical character development apart from maybe the MC.  

Main Character

Tyler Berwick: A 22-year-old looking for Real Love™, so naturally, he chooses to use Tinder.  Inspired by his friend, Bradley, he adapts the Netflix and Chill dating method, even though it doesn’t really line up with what he actually wants.  Nerdy and nervous, but pretty average looking.  

Side Characters

Bradley: Tyler’s best friend and also a massive douche.  Cares for his friend enough to give him really bad dating advice, and is the whole reason this story gets going in the first place, sparked by Bradley giving Tyler the email and username to his Disney+ account.  

Stella: Tyler’s first option while swiping on Tinder, and by far the sweetest of the girls available.  A bright, conventionally attractive smile, and a girly personality. Bubbly, but potentially grating and annoying.  She prefers the movies Frozen and Beauty and the Beast.

Rachel:  Resident bad bitch.  Presumably swiped right on Tyler by accident, only for him to accidentally garner her interest.  Color in her hair, numerous piercings, this she’s going to be a bit of a challenge for Tyler to deal with.  She prefers the movies Monsters, Inc. and One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Erin: Typical nerdy girl.  Impressed by pop culture references and memes, and probably Tyler’s most natural fit.  No particularly distinguishing physical features, she’s got glasses, cause nerds have glasses.  She prefers the movies Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016).

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Seems interesting. I am not sure how Rachel's movies fit her personality, but I think this is a great setup. Sounds like it will have a lot of branching so make sure you start early! It would be a shame if the 6 branches all had the same plot or were only a few pages because you ran out of time. I also imagine that once you pick a girl and movie the game goes into more of a gauntlet until the finish, otherwise you are looking at 12+ branches to write minimum. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, I am just excited to see how you balance the horror and the romance elements.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Thanks for the feedback!  I was switching the movies around earlier between them, it was a bit difficult to gather 6 Disney stories with snowy scenes that ALSO matched their personalities.  If you happen to think of anything I forgot, that'd be cool.  

And it's going to split into 6 branches very very early on, I'm trying to make it manageable so it doesn't achieve the "wide as the ocean, deep as a puddle" effect.  Hopefully it works lol.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Nice! Yeah just make sure each branch is a good story in its own right. I think the movies mostly work... keep in mind that Disney also has starwars and some more grown up stuff on it. More movies with a winter scene/ theme might be like Mulan, The Black Culdron, and Anastasia (fox movie but Disney bought them).

However, if you character likes the movie you can use any. I have know people that seem like they would hate anything Disney made but are like "OMG Tangled?!?!?"

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Been hella busy, but I have managed to write a couple more pages and expand the story a little bit more to make the six paths feel more distinct from each other.  Hoping to get in some good writing this weekend.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

Just over 24 hours left and 2k words written.  This is going to be a fun one.

Chef's Kitchen: Year's End Contest

4 years ago

You can do it. You'll need to do it very quickly, but you can do it.