Bits and Pieces

[InceptionBwaaa]

Who would want such a tragedy as the takedown of the Shaggy Dog Story?

Leik if u cry evryteim

[Twippit]

I dunno, man. I dunno. It's frustrating for me too. At the end of the day it's just a bunch of words, which are just scribbles we've chosen to give meaning to. But whatever, let it affect you however you like, I suppose.

[InceptionBwaaa]

I hope this next story will bring as much joy into your life as the original Shaggy Dog Story of yours brought into mine.

Mentlegen, may I make a contribution?

So, one day, I was sitting at the lunch table with some friends of mine when my wristwatch alarm went off. I realized it was time to go and catch the butterflies outside. So, I stood up, walked out the door and grabbed the net that I had cleverly hidden in a tree stump, a hiding spot reminisce of Katniss Everdeen's bow-stump. I swung the thing wildly around and looked inside. I had caught 8 butterflies! That had to be a record! I ran inside and showed my findings to the secretary in the office, but her eyes widened and she screamed. I cringed as I looked down at the net and realized I was holding a longsword to her throat. I dropped it and backed up into a mountain. Well, a mountain with arms and legs, wearing a neat Armani tux. He grabbed me in a Full Nelson and body slammed me backwards. My head ringing, I stood up and found that his outfit and my surroundings had changed to that of a UFC match. Dazed and confused, I looked down at my butterfly hunting clothes to see them replaced with a tight leotard that was extremely revealing.

"And now she looks as if he's knocked the last 5 hours out of her head!" a voice rang out from outside the ring. I looked towards it and saw Joe Rogan and that other dude sitting at a table, the other leaning towards Joe, who, by the look of his face, was very uncomfortable sitting next to him.

"Yes," Joe said, having to refrain from gagging.

I raised my fist and swung with the best uppercut I could, coming up from a crouch. Suddenly I was lifted into the air and set spinning wildly.

"Shoryuken!" I shouted, landing in crouching tiger position. I raised my foot to kick the other guy in the face, but he grabbed it and twisted it around. I went flying back, my red headband whipping around with my hair. I landed on a car, and discovered that the scenery had changed yet again! I was in a white training gi with a red waistband and red boxing gloves on. I saw my opponent taunt me, then gather his hands behind him in a fasion similar to the Kamehameha. An idea sprang into my head. I hopped up and did the same as he.

"Haduken!" we shouted at the same time. A beam of energy shot from my hands to meet one from his, and a ball of blue crackling electricity formed in the center. I pushed as hard as I could, but it was no use. We sat in a bloody stalemate for a minute. Another idea popped into my brain.

"Kaio-ken... times twenty!" I screamed as loud as I could. I felt my power increase twentyfold, and my Haduken beam turned a sickly shade of red. The ball grew in size before hitting my opponent and turning him into a blob of charred flesh. I brushed the dust off of my gloves and jumped into the air. He wasn't dead yet, and I intended to finish him off in the best way possibru. I used my energy to split into three glowing red orbs that eventually met at the summit of my flight. I floated for a minute before doubling back around and flying at the ground at Mach 20. I hit the cement with so much force, I continued through the Earth and emerged into the liquid outer core of the planet. I swam around for a little while before I realized my Fire Resitance potion was about to wear off. I heaved myself out onto a glowing pile of red rocks and cradled myself until I cooled down. When I did, I opened my eyes to see a huge white floating octopus thing in front of me. He held out one tentacle as if for me to grab. When I did, it didn't jerk away. Instead, it pulled me up onto its flat head. A railgun lay next to me, and I picked it up. I realized that there were people running around with guns aimed at me and Gassy Ghast. So, I did as any natural, fresh-minded human being would do and took aim. I had only pulled the trigger for half a second when a large plasma beam cut one of the men in half. Others melted on the spot, caused by the sheer heat of plasma. I shot it again, this time severing a large platform of the Netherrack. Three of them fell into the lava.

"Triple Kill!" a deep male voice said inside my mind. I pulled the trigger again, but the gun clicked and I threw it off of the Ghast as we rounded a corner. I stood up as a familiar sight caught my eye. A large metal sphere, with a large mounted energy gun on its front. Me and Gassy flew through a trench on its side until we reached a hole. I jumled off of Gassy. And into the whole as the space station's gravity pulled me toward its core. I was emptied out upside down in the lair of an ugly old man in a black robe.

"Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battlestation!" he said, spitting that last word. He pressed a button and I saw through a viewport as the massive energy cannon destroyed my dear Ghast. Enraged, I threw myself at the man and began rapidly pressing circle. Soon, my eyes were covered with Zeus's blood, and as I stood up, I brought the Olympian Blade into my stomach, seemingly killing myself. But after the credits rolled, I saw only a trail of blood.

I awoke on a cot in the infirmary of George Daily Mental Hospital. My fist were bloody and split open and my eyes had been removed, replaced with robotic implants that could record and upload and download and all other cool stuff. I smiled as I thought how great a shaggy dog story this would make.

[Twippit]

My friend... There is a line between "shaggy dog" and "fever dream", and I gotta say you crossed that line pretty hard back there...

...but you did make me laugh.

[InceptionBwaaa]

Thank you. It's my specialty.

As for the line, that's my very first Shaggy Dog Story. So you could say that I'm an amatuer at it. But anyways, thanks for the feedback.

[Twippit]

Well, here's a tip: start with something real.

"I was just shoppin' for groceries, right? I needed some potatoes."

Then something... Unusual happens.

"All the sudden, I've been in the store for half an hour, and I realize I've been all over this shop and I ain't seen no potatoes nowhere!"

Slowly -key word here is slowly- escalate the action, along with the weirdness.

"So I goes up to the employee an' I says, I says, 'Say, don't y'all got some taters roundabouts somewhere?'
He looks at me and gives me this hard stare, like some sort of 'Nam vet staring into the sun fer an hour. Then he sighs and says, 'Sir, did you not see the crowd who stormed in here bout an hour ago?'
I says to him, 'Nosuh I did not.'
A single tear rolls down his cheek as he regales his tale to me. 'To-day, Saturday, May third, twenty-four-teen, was the Great Forum-Wide Potato Storm of Twenty-four-teen. Teens and college-age kids by the thousands tore down the doors and stole potatoes, shouting their terrible war cries. I still hear it ringing in my ears... Shouts of 'two kinds' and 'for Flora' could be heard store-wide. It... It was terrible, sir!'"

Then you wrap it all up.

"So I hears this, and I laughs and laughs and laughs.
'What... What is so funny, sir?' asks the clerk, wiping tears from his eyes.
'Ohhhh,' I sighs, chuckling, 'new user hazing.' Then I snag the tater from his pocket.
The dude is shocked. 'Hey! That's the last potato!'
I smiles and says, 'Sure is, Booty Medic.' Then I ran off in sheer glee."

It also helps if you use an accent throughout the entirety of the piece. Accents make things funnier, I don't know why. Now that wasn't the best I could come up with, but what the hell, I just woke up. Here, have a SDS on your Saturday.

[InceptionBwaaa]

That still made me laugh. I will try to write my shaggy dog stories more long those lines. Thanks. I do like writing fevr dreams, though. The sheer randomness of dubstep helps me produce those.

[Twippit]

So, weird dream. I already posted it here, but I think this is a nice place to have it as well.

WELL. I just woke up from a doozy. Lemme break it down for you.

So I'm eating this delicious snack. My stepmother walks in, and starts talking to me about something ...I don't quite remember what and it's not important BECAUSE she discovers I'm eating that snack. She starts yelling at me for eating the snack because I wasn't sharing with the other people in the house, but I respond with the fact that the other people in the house have had plenty of chances to eat said snack. The argument moves outside (we were on our way to go see my dad), and we're crossing the road when suddenly a boat on a runaway trailer comes barreling down the road, headed straight for my stepmother! I push her out of the way and the boat runs me over...

And I hit the next button on the bottom of the webpage. Apparently, that wasn't real life, that was a webcomic done by Tom Fischbaugh (or however you spell that blasted last name), where a boy wakes up under a boat with no idea who or where he is and he meets a girl and she helps him through life and rediscovery of himself. They meet many other cast members, who get paired off, and it looks like we're getting close to the good end. So I was checking the webcomic when I saw the main character get hit by a boat, which is startling! Is he okay, I wonder, hitting the next button... And it brings me to the first page. I get it. It's a cycle. That *was* the end. Ahhhh, that was a good read, I thought. So I come to the forums (after a lengthy time wandering the terrible early website) and I read numerous discussions about the day's page, and everything's great when all of a sudden-

I wake up. I wake up and I realize, dang, what a strange dream. Trace never got hit by a boat. Also, it's a furry comic, no room for all those humans. Weird. So I log on to the 2k forums, head over to the Rant board, and post my odd experience on the Dreams thread. Serious, thought-out replies are posted, and the obvious "Inception" reference is made a couple times. I move over to the RP Board, where I'm running like 15 games and-

And now I'm here. I'm *hoping* this isn't another layer, but nothing seems wrong yet so I'm going to assume this is reality and continue acting as if it is such. But damn, what a bizarre dream.

[Twippit]

I am embarrassed by almost everything on this thread.

So I'll put something here that I'm not embarrassed by.


Role Park, redeux

I quietly regard the aging metal plaque –the one I knew so well, the one I’d seen and disregarded so many times as I walked in to the so pompously self-titled “art gallery.” The plaque holds rules and formalities… The cornerstones of the “subculture” I’d once held so dear.

Once, this had all meant so much to me. That all feels like a lifetime ago now... After all I’ve been through, it almost seems like a sin to be back.

I look up as it starts to drizzle -which of course is a facsimile designed to lure me back into the building. Unfortunately, knowing it was fake didn’t make it any less cold or wet. I reach to pull my trenchcoat tighter around me in my old habitual fashion, only to find it not there. I’d burned it when I got out of rehab- but old habits die hard. I light up a cig just to be poignant.

I let out a drag and return my gaze to the building. The heavy metal door, the façade of formality… In comparison to the peace I found in the desert, it all seems so… Noisy. Unnecessary.

Sad.

I want to share everything I’ve learned, all that I’ve gained –I can build a shelter and a fire in less than 60 minutes with nothing more than my hands, some string and a knife– but I know that my knowledge won’t translate to those who are as “plugged in” as I was. I can’t help them.

But life could be so much better for them. If only they knew…

But nothing. I turn away and stare dismally at the ground. It’s not that they’re beyond saving, it’s that they don’t want -or don’t need- to be saved. I just sound like a crazy hippy self-help guru to most of them.

They don’t need me.

If only I could convince them.

I squint at the plaque. “Open a door, and you could be anywhere,” it reads. I scoff. So pompous. So self-important. So ignorant to the world around it, to the real world. This manufactured experience is no substitute for real-world experience. Masturbation is never the same as sex, no matter how good it feels.

And yet…

Amidst all my quietly boiling anger, in the cracks of my sad mask that reminds me that I hate this part of myself that brought me back here, there lies the memories. Good, bad… I made friends here. I based my whole life here once. This was once my home, the apartment with my bed merely that place I visited once a day. I laughed a lot here, once. I cried sometimes. For moments, brief, fleeting moments, all the plastic and the false lives blurred into what felt so, so real. I was almost happy.

Wasn’t I?

Well then… Why am I back?

I quietly regard the aging metal plaque again. This whole city has an air about it -a self-celebratory air, one of more importance than it’s earned. This building is no different. It permeates the very air around me. It’s… disgusting. I’m so sickened with myself, with this city, with the state of society… Nothing is right, and there’s so little I can do about it.

That’s probably why I’m back.

I am helpless. And I might as well indulge myself while I’m here.

I walk in, accepting the delicious, sickeningly familiar rush as I cross the threshold into my own sad oblivion.