It's day three of Spring Fanon Con 2018, and that means it is time for the Overall Writing Competition! This time hosted by me, Aaron! This would also be my first time hosting a Competition for Fanon Con, so here goes nothing!
Just as a reminder for anyone that has forgotten, this competition is based purely on the winners of the previous two writing competitions- effectively a 'best of the best'-type deal. Both entries are winners, but one winner is a bigger winner than the other winner. Simple.
Second Place[]
| Brandon's Entry |
|---|
| I often find myself, wondering about the future.
About the days to come and the years to follow. I wonder what will become of me. What my legacy will become. About the children I'll raise and the things I'll do. About the places I'll visit and the people I'll meet. Yes, I wonder. I wonder about those times. And then I wonder about today. A day like every other. Sometimes, it feels like a pattern. A repeating pattern between waking up, eating food, going to work and hanging out. Then a cycle or a loop for the day to come. But despite that feeling, I still find myself wondering. I still find myself living in fear and anxiety of the day after today. If everything is the same then, why does it feel like a mystery to me? I suppose, when one is looking back, the past is already written. The present is current and is what you make of it. But tomorrow. Tomorrow is unknown to me. Tomorrow is unknown to all of us. We can predict it, plan it, wait for it to arrive- But what if it's all for nothing? To find yourself in the next day and nothing is how it was supposed to be. It's the fear that keeps me up at night. But it's also the hope that makes me restless. The hope of seeing a tomorrow where everything has changed but for the better. Imagine a tomorrow where you can touch the skies every hour of the day. Imagine a tomorrow where you can visit any place in the universe within the blink of an eye. Imagine a tomorrow where you can be anyone you want to be. The future may be considered a few years or even a hundred years away. But in reality, It's only the day after this day. I want to make a better tomorrow. Not just for myself but for the world and everyone in it. But it won't be easy. I never planned on it. In fact, I don't think I even wanted it to begin with. But these thoughts, these feelings, they all lead to what the next day will bring. So why not just start... today? |
This entry is clever, a bit obvious in places, but still clever. It justifies anxieties in a way that genuinely made me go 'huh' the first time I read it. Definitely not a bad entry, I just didn't like it as much as...
First Place[]
| WTB's Entry |
|---|
| Evil's Technician:
"Come on, Jennifer! Run!" Clark yells, lifting up her exhausted girlfriend. The inhumane wails and shrieks of the rage-fueled creature drew near as Jennifer rose to her feet. Clark clutched onto her, running as the silhouette of the enormous queen alien became visible in the corridor behind them. The two continued to run, their feet banging heavily against the metallic floor of the spaceship. Jennifer limped, her shin bleeding as the creature managed to take a piece of her leg prior. Jennifer whimpered from the burning flow of red seeping down her leg, staining her pantleg dark. However, the seemingly endless adrenaline pressed her to go on. Both her and Clark dashed into the room, slamming their hand on the keypad behind them and locking the door right as the alien's glossy tendrils reached for the two. The metal door slammed down with the force of an anchor, sealing itself shut. Clark and Jennifer both gasped as the queen alien began to scratch and claw at the steel door, desperately wanting to bust through it. The queen alien attempted to dig its hideously sharp 5-inch-long claws deep into the titanium wall keeping it away from the two victims she was so close to catching. Her numerous sets of purple eyes swerved and bugged out in anger, her rotating and flexing eyelids twitching. She looked down at one of her four left arms, seeing the hideous gash left on the top of her forearm from where she took a piece of broken pipe from Clark. Chunky mint-green blood oozed out as she planted one of her hands over the gash, trying to muffle the bleeding. The sounds of Clark and Jennifer seemed to echo in her ears, the vibrations of their footsteps made every vein in her body swell up and pop out her skin. Her anger seemed to spill over as she began to hiss and growl, still banging at the now heavily scratched metal door. "It's okay, precious. You were close, probably the closest I have today so far. You did good." That male voice echoed in her ears. It was in her head. She knew it. Her eyes started to dilate as she closed her eyes. She laid a hand over her prominent chest, feeling her out of control heartbeat. She breathed harshly, trying to let it settle down. "Don't lose your adrenaline. There's a soft spot in the door. Should be near the lower left corner. If you punch a hole in it, you can reach to the keypad and open the door." The male voice said. Her head was pounding. Everything was hurting. The technician laid his hands on the keyboard, watching two monitors of the countless monitors, one showed the queen alien, looking for the soft spot in the door and the other showed Clark and Jennifer talking. "YOU! What are you doing?!" The technician shrieked at another monitor, showing a horribly burned serial killer gripping an ax in one of his scab-covered hands. He had cornered his ex-girlfriend, finally about to put her out of her misery after she reduced him to a loner. A smile curled onto what he had left of his blistered lips, revealing his dark-yellow blood stained with crimson after he tore a jugular vein out of her boyfriend's neck. He stared at her with one beady bloodshot eye, the other lost in the inferno. "Showing mercy, Terrance? Feeling bad for the person who disfigured you?! I will not permit that! KILL HER!" Terrance obliged, splattering the woman's thick dark-red blood everywhere with a slash of his ax, tearing into her face and blinding her in one eye. She had one eye like him. She was almost even with him now but not enough. Her agonizing scream was cut down with another swing as Terrance slashed her throat, leaving her gasping and gurgling. Terrance performed a third slash, burying the hatchet in her scalp and putting an end to her. "Perfect. You did well, Terrance." The technician said. He leaned back to his office chair, seeing the twisting and turning wall filled entirely with a web of monitors. Countless villains straight out of horror movies were seen such as possessed voodoo dolls with tiny knives, the classic masked slashers, mutated behemoths, sentient humanoid-shaped machines gone rogue, and creatures not from this world, straight from space, another dimension, or even hell itself. This was his job. He was the technician. He was the man behind the monitors. The severed voice in all of their heads. They all had their motives. They wanted revenge for their death or deformation. They wanted back to a lover, friend, stranger, or even family member that did them wrong. They wanted something they had that belonged to them. They were the nightmares out of your sub-conscious. They all had their weapons. The hatchets, the machetes, the knives, the claws, the tendrils, and maybe even their own brute strength. Some even got creative and used other devices for slaughter. The technician enjoyed their creativity. Killings were king in the technician's world. None shall be spared... but they can be saved. "Why must the heroes always win? For the deeds they did. They don't deserve to survive. They deserve to suffer." The technician mumbled to himself. "They brought the horror. The chaos. The madness. The inhumanity. A majority of them created these little life-taking creatures. The creators shall die at the hands of its creation." The technician turned around to see what he called "The Killers of The Century." They were his favorites. The most popular, infamous, and well-known killers that can't be put down so easily. The technician cackled himself, seeing the small wall of those eight monitors. He almost burst out laughing when he saw a plague doctor-masked serial killer throw a machete straight through the back of a fleeing person, impaling right through him and coming out his chest before he hobbled slightly and eventually collapsed with a thud. The thrill brought joy to the technician. The blood shed by them is his gasoline. His motivation. It fuels him. The technician turned to another wall to what he called "The Bombing Killers." They were decent halfway but down right bad. They were unlikable, not in a threatening or a malicious way but in just a downright confusing and idiotic way. They had generic, basic killing methods and only went off the good old cliched characters. The male stoner, the over-attractive couple, the nerd. You name it. This wall had what seemed like thousands of monitors and a majority of them were the only ones the technician didn't come up with. A worthy killer in this wall is a rare gem to find. A simple stab isn't going to satisfy him. A throat slashed slowly until the head is decapitated? A shotgun blast leaving someone's entrails dangling out like spaghetti pouring out of a blown-open soup can? Someone being slowly dismembered with a paper trimmer blade? That's the carnage. That is what he wants. They provide it to him. The technician turned back into his chair to face the main wall. The new recruits straight out of horror and terror. Terrance definitely passed. A sequel for him shall be made for him. It's a shame they want him to die at the end for justice on killing his ex-girlfriend. It's ridiculous. It's unfair. It's horrible. It's downright disgusting. Humans are such frail, selfish beings that are afraid of death. They scream and wail when they are shot, stabbed, cut, or bruised. They're weak insects. All of them. Only the inhumane can put them to their eternal sleep six feet under the earth's uppermost layer. The web of monitors. The web of evil. Flickering and flashing. The bloods spilling, the bones breaking, the flesh ripping, the veins tearing... He watched it all. The scariest monster. The more bone-chillest creature. The stealthiest alien. The most restless undead spirit. It's the one behind the scenes. The one you can't see. Even in the darkest night or the brightest day. The black angel with wings of metal. Evil's technician. |
A unique concept, middling execution, but propped up with good ideas and sets itself up nicely. The writing itself is questionable in places; The word 'axe' is misspelled both times, there are some places where words are repeated in weird ways, the fact that the inhuman alien queen (which I pictured as a mixture between a Tyranid Venomthrope and Beth's Mytholog) has a 'prominent chest'...
This story is definitely carried further by the ideas it conveys rather than how it conveys them, which I guess would be the opposite of how I feel about Brandon's entry. From a technical standpoint Brandon's is the better written of the two, But if I were turned away by good ideas executed poorly I wouldn't be a member of the Ben 10 fandom, now would I?
Oh and this entry would still have come first if I'd won the Creative Writing Comp, cos I ain't about to put myself in first place and look like a vain tool.
Closing[]
That wraps up the writing contests for this season's Fanon Con! I hope you guys enjoyed reading these entries as much as I did! Stick around for tomorrow's art competition where me and CaT forgot to tell people they were allowed to submit a short explanation of their work along with their piece due to the potentially confusing nature of the art the subject would have allowed! Such fun!