Experiences Tiny Brags Thread: Your Best Lines/Passages

[StarDeux]

Sometimes you write something and it just clicks. A line, a bit of dialogue, a description and you have to sit back and admire it for a second because you were just cooking.

I thought it'd be fun to have a thread where we can show off those moments! If you’ve got a line or a passage you’re proud of (whether it’s from a post, a WIP, or anything else), drop it here! Feel free to give a little context if you want, or just toss the line out into the void.

No pressure, no judgment, I just want to see what people are proud of

Can’t wait to read what everyone shares!

 

[davy]

I'm having trouble finding anything of mine that works out of context, but I really want to see what you and others have got!

 

[davy]

Wait, I do have a bit that works out of context!!! (But for just a smidge of context - a former enemy ended up on our team basically by accident, got shot by the new bad guys, and my guy took the opportunity to ask him some questions about our missing teammate.)

The nurse wouldn’t be back for at least an hour, maybe more. I’d probably never have the implicit threat of death on my side again, and disorienting drug side effects were the next best thing.

I stepped closer and reached out to tap his shoulder, then saw the bandage and stopped. I looked down at myself, standing on the scuffmark textured linoleum floor, wearing a clean set of blue OR scrubs in place of the bloodied clothing I’d thrown out. I’d already crossed a line by taking advantage of Jinx’s injury in the Maelstrom workshop. Here was another line.

I left, and closed the curtain behind me.

 

[MxKit]

I'm actually really proud of basically everything from this RP, buuuut a friend and I did an entire little storyline set after one of the "Bad Ends" of the visual novel Slay the Princess. The world has become a stagnant thing where nothing ever changes, and one of the characters, kind of sort of a god and also existing in a world without death or literally anything really, Did Not Deal Well with it... Well, none of them dealt well with it, but this one basically hollowed itself out to nothing but a husk (and then promptly dissociated super hard), and when finally asked why it did that, its answer was "husks have nothing to defend."

And when its companion suspiciously asked if she was really meant to believe it wouldn't defend itself even if she attacked it:

The Cold has turned its head back towards her as it walks, but it stops now, and turns to face her.

Then it stands perfectly still.

Impassive. Its arms, what is left of them, are limp at its sides; it has no tension or apparent readiness to it; it's not preparing itself for anything. Just standing there.

"You can't hurt me." The effort of talking requires more outside impetus than the effort of moving, but she does keep pushing.

(If there were no one around to wind it up, would it do anything anymore?)

"I can't hurt you unless you let me." She has to know that, but it doesn't seem to make any difference to her.

Somehow more quietly than all the rest, almost like the release of a final breath, letting go of the effort: "What's the point?"

 

[Jarms]

Passages you say...

Spoiler: It's Long, Also Horror.

Her breath came in clouds.

A shallow, panicked gasp pulled from frozen lungs. She blinked, lashes crusted with frost, and the world above her resolved - metal ceiling, dark, corroded, sweating with condensation. Everything smelled of rust and something… thicker.

She was lying on a grated floor, her side numb against the steel. Cold had soaked into her bones. When she sat up, her white chiton cracked like stiff paper.

The silence was total.

And then she heard it. A low drip, drip, drip. Slow. Wet. Measured.

Around her, hulking forms dangled from chains - some skinned, some bloated with ice, others missing limbs entirely. Their surfaces gleamed under a sheen of frost. The carcasses swayed just slightly, though no wind moved. A squeaking chain overhead turned once, lazily.

She stood, knees buckling. The metal floor echoed under her sandals. A meat hook hung inches from her shoulder, its curve glinting. She shivered and stepped away, but not too far. She didn’t know what was beyond the rows of hanging flesh.

She wandered.

Through corridors of butchered meat and empty bone hooks. Through broken plastic curtains, yellowed with age. She passed a conveyor belt, a blood-drained pit, rusted tools scattered like ancient relics. Every surface had that icy sheen, and her breath was a ghost following her through the dark.

She found a hallway. Bare bulbs overhead flickered like dying eyes.

Then.

A light. Flickering, not from above, but ahead. Pale. Artificial.

She followed it.

It poured from a side room. A hum buzzed from within - familiar. Digital. Human.

She turned the corner.

It was a small office. Glass windows shattered, file cabinets overturned, papers long mildewed. A dusty film covered everything but the center of the room, where an old film projector spun silently, casting its light on a yellowed screen across the wall.

The reel clicked forward.

She stepped closer.

The image wasn’t a movie. It was a live feed.

A tunnel. Red tiles. A corridor, just like the one she had walked. And the feed - it blinked.

She squinted. The edges of the frame curved oddly.

Then she realized.

It was from eyes. Two eyes.

The projector was streaming her perspective, no, not hers. His. She lifted a hand, and the image on the screen did the same. But she had not connected a camera.

Her hands began to tremble.

And then, on the screen, the image shifted. Twitched.

Something was behind her.

But when she turned, the room was empty. It must have been behind him.

On the screen, however... the view remained fixed. Watching.

And blinking.

Not her eyes anymore. They were his. George was in control, and she was trapped inside their body. This was George's domain, the worst aspects of human's greed and hunger.

“George, no. Don’t.”