General Discussion Thread

[Keep Looking]

Oh, wow, 10 years! Thank you for reminding us, Wave!

My favourite fanworks... hm! I think the Chapter Break Fillers will always have a special place in my heart, since they helped me through some tough times. Of course I'll also always remember the poetry we'd write in the comments - I still have the document on my computer and actually printed it out at some point as well (just in case the world ended or my computer died or something. I'm the kind of person who still prints out physical photos sometimes to make photo albums.

Looking back, I'm quite impressed by the different poetic styles I tried out. I haven't written nearly as much poetry since SSSS ended - something about having that prompt every day and a community to share it with really made me want to write!

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 182 • show

I kept my eyes upon the road ahead
I fled the city full of plague and death
My shoulder itched, I gripped the wheel instead
I drove past trees that cleared my every breath

The itch means nothing.
The itch could be anything.

I felt a creeping soreness in my chest
I watched my petrol slowly running low
My breathing harsh, I pulled aside to rest
I felt my rib cage strain with every blow

This pain means nothing.
This pain could be anything.

I heard the voices calling in my head
I tried to push them back, to let them go
My eyes remained trained on the road ahead
I strained, but they would never let me go

These voices mean nothing.
These voices could be anything.

I felt my rib cage slowly crack, expand
I heard my breath grow ragged, ever slow
My life was pain, my hands began to shake
I could not think, the voices whispered low

I’m turning into nothing.
I’m turning into anything.

I call you, save me, take the pain away
I beg you, share it, feel my pain as well
My eyes are dark, I hide from light of day
I only feel my pain, it grows and swells

I’m waiting here for nothing.
I’m waiting here for anything.

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 207 • show

Your golden hair is full of ick and gore
The manic smile has faded from your face
Oh messy Swede, I never asked for more
Yet still you came here to this perilous place
So I will wait and watch you splash and flail
To wash the blood from hair that’s golden-pale

I tried to come here silent and alone
To face my fate and save what I have left
You did not heed my warning, caref’lly shown
You would not let our little group be cleft
So I suppose you’ll be here till the end
My loud and messy, golden Swedish friend

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 209 • show

The sunset sweeps a flaming yellow path across the sky
The air is soft and warm, the wind is but a gentle sigh
A behemoth of tank and limb in broken anguish lies
As searchers five continue on, and bid its shell goodbye

Great peril lies behind, and still more peril lies ahead
Yet as the fog that’s rising swirls above the searchers’ heads
They still by dream and string and hope will let themselves be led
Before the owl that rests upon its shelf starts seeping red

So ere they hurry on, beneath the golden sunset sky
Past mossy log and branch that on the crumbling road do lie
Let beast and troll of rot and foul miasma pass them by
As searchers five continue ‘neath the branches stretching high

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 214 • show

The white-bright sunlight streams as if through glass
Between the moss-green pillars and the beams
Beneath them, weary trav’llers softly pass
And watch their steps, lest peril here is seen
And yet, though skulls hang stretched like gruesome masks
The violet flowers bloom amongst the grass

Though souls long-lost lie twisted, broken, pained
Like monsters from an endless nightmare’s chase
While barbed-wire, sharp, is looped and looped again
In fruitless hope to save, protect this place
The sky still sends its sunlight and soft rains
And vines grow green, between the planks they strain

Through ages gone and ages yet to pass
As wand’rers lost and seekers few go by
Through love and pain and grief that tears apart
The vines still send their leaves to reach the sky
Below, the flowers bloom amongst the grass
Their violet hues shine bright like sunlit glass

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 232 (and 234) • show

Adventure 2, Page 232

Words, like birds, are fleeting things
That leap from mouth with flurry of wings
What words have we that words don’t bring?

Paper. Scissors. Rock.

Pens draw bends that warp and turn
And leave their marks in paper burned
What needs no scrawling pen to learn?

Rock. Paper. Scissors.

Tongues among the worlds of men
Are twisted, tangled things - so then
What needs no tongue, no words, no pen?

Scissors. Paper. Rock.

Adventure 2, Page 234

Sheep eat paper, left unread
And rocks beneath their hooves that tread
A pair of scissors shear their heads
None can beat the sheep, he said.

Bang! The sheep is dead.

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 242 • show

It boils and bubbles like pus-filled pustules, stinging and swirling and tearing and trapping itself in your skin like the shards of dark whispers that are trapped in your mind.

And it swells and grows and stays as you wait and watch and run until your legs crumple beneath you and the air that seemed so thin is suddenly solid and it cracks like a bone splintering under your skin and then, only then, when you’re battered and bruised and fallen, only then does it come out, bursting out of you like water bursts out of a broken pipe.

The glass melts. The glass melts as if it was never there at all, dripping and pooling onto the ground, and behind it, the fragile film of separation broken, you feel their heat and you feel their breath and you feel their fear seeping and creeping through your body and finding its place and sitting with your own in the cold, sharp void that is what has become of your mind.

And all you want in this one moment is to feel their fear as it stings and swirls and swells until it spills over and pools on the floor, as their bodies melt and fall like glass and finally, finally, their fear is released and they are released and all you really want is release because you are afraid and you are trapped here and you are battered and bruised and terrifyingly, torturously alive.

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 262 • show

Underneath the lilies white
In silent waters dark and deep
Where tangled roots have masked the light
The pasture’s daughters lie asleep

Shrouded in the lilies white
Like corpses in their graves gone cold
Lain far from morning’s golden light
On pastures green, in times of old

There beside the lilies white
The daughters raised their shaggy heads
Til shadows grew and found their bite
And bade them lie in watery beds

Dappled by the lilies white
The moonbeams fall through waters deep
To sing the voices of the night
And wake the ones who lie asleep

Rising from the lilies white
The daughters climb above the reeds
To walk the grass-lain fields by night
And tread their paths between the trees

Draped with ropes of lilies white
That strangle dim and clouded eyes
They bear the creeping shadow’s bite
Before the sunrise lights the skies

Underneath the lilies white
In silent waters dark and deep
Where tangled roots have masked the light
The pasture’s daughters lie asleep

Shrouded in the lilies white
Like corpses in their graves gone cold
Lain far from morning’s golden light
On pastures green, in times of old

Spoiler: Adventure 2, Page 266 • show

You never quite know when the rain will fall down, but you wait for it anyway.

The wind is blowing from the ocean
It brings a scent you can’t quite trace -
A sense of thickness, perhaps?

On the horizon clouds gather, swirling in their greyness
Slowly creeping across the skies, they pull down a blanket -
They mask the warm-bright sun

The air tightens -
You breathe it in.
The air tightens, and you hold your breath

The first drop falls - or did it?
You aren’t quite sure.
Still, that spot of coldness came from somewhere

More droplets fall - there’s no doubt now
Then suddenly the deluge is coming down
Hammering hard on the road, drip-drip-dripping through the trees

The goosebumps on your arms betray your coldness
As the damp works its way beneath your cloak.
The drips are running down your back

And there in the cold-damp-dimness, you wonder -
Why are all your plans now washed away?
(did you ever see this coming?)

You never quite know when the rain will fall down, but you wait for it anyway.