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November Writing Prompts 2020
November is here! The Halloween event is in full swing and there are tricks and treats abound, and so many creative uses of costumes! Let that energy carry you into autumn proper as the days grow shorter. And As always--
Disclaimer: I never close old writing prompts from previous months. People can and should be encouraged to post on old month's prompts and I highly encourage players to track these posts to catch stragglers or new people writing on old prompts.
Now. With that out of the way, onto this month's prompts.
1. "Well it went from fine to Frosty the Snowman out real damn fast. What now?"
2. Rituals and traditions are a way to draw a community together, whether it's as large as a species or small as one family. How does your character connect with the people they love?
3. "If one good thing came of all that, it was this."
4. Some things can only happen beneath the light of a blue moon.
5. "I saw something out in the fog this morning..."
Bonus image prompt:
3 - If one good thing came of all that, it was this.
“Hey, what are you still doing up?” Minoru laughed, dropping his gym bag by the door and slipping off his shoes. Isamu glanced up. His expression was a little more withdrawn than usual.
“...waiting for you, actually.”
Minoru cocked his head at both the tone of his brother’s voice and the relatively short sentence. “What’s wrong?”
“I have been ruminating, attempting to collect my thoughts...” he stammered softly closing his notebook as Minoru made his way over to the couch. The younger twin plopped down, giving Isamu his full attention. “What I mean to say, is I’ve been thinking...”
“About what that angel said?”
Isamu let out a long sigh. “About what that angel said.”
Silence stretched between them, followed by a couple of false starts where they both started talking at once. Minoru conceded, and Isamu finally asked, “Do you... truly believe that you are below me? Intellectually, I mean?”
“Well... yeah...” Minoru scratched his head, the way he often did when he was feeling self-conscious. “Not that I mind! I mean, you ARE a freaking genius. I was happy just to graduate high school.”
“...Why?”
“Why was I happy to graduate? Come on. One more day sitting still in a desk and I was going to seriously lose it.” Minoru scoffed.
“No, I mean... why. Why DO you believe it?”
It would have been easy to just say, ‘because it’s true.’ He’d said the same thing to Astaroth more than once. But he could tell this was weighing heavily on his brother’s mind. And if he was truly being honest with himself, it had been on his mind during the slow parts of his shift too. (And to think, some call a slow night a miracle.)
“I guess... because growing up, Mama and Papa were bragging about their little scholar, how far above the rest of the class you were, how you were going to make the whole family proud...” he sighed softly. “Parent teacher conferences about you were always about keeping your mind stimulated. Parent teacher conferences about me were about keeping me off the roof.”
“...third grade. I remember that.” Isamu laughed a little, if only to ease the tension. “You had a growth spurt before I did.”
“It was about the only thing I got before you did.” He said quickly, only realizing the implications after he’d said it. “I mean, I could finally reach the ledge...”
“You were jealous.”
Minoru lowered his head. “Oh yeah. Bro, when we were kids, I hated you. I hated that Mama and Papa always seemed to like you best. I hated that no matter what I did, you did it better without even having to work at it. It wasn’t fair.”
“Oh...”
“It wasn’t until, god, I think we were eleven, maybe twelve, that I finally just stopped trying. You were always going to be the genius. That spot was taken. So If I wanted to be somebody, I’d better be something else.”
Isamu was silent. When he looked up, Minoru caught him nodding regretfully.
“But you already knew all of that... didn’t you.”
“I did...” Isamu was quiet for a moment. He swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat. “Minoru... Astaroth was accurate. I’observed your struggle with me, and with yourself, and remained complacent. I never once intervened. I guess you could even say there was a part of me that... well, took pride in having won.”
Minoru was quiet too.
“You stood up for me when she called me heartless, but I am afraid that is exactly what I have been. Not consciously, not anymore, as I wasn’t even aware of it until I had done a considerable amount of introspection, but...”
“...do you really think I’m stupid?”
Isamu frantically shook his head, looking Minoru straight in the eyes. “No! No... I... if anything, I think I’m a coward. A coward who was always too afraid of not being their favorite, of not being the smartest, of being second best that I robbed my own brother of so many missed opportunities. And now you know and...”
His voice was even quieter now. His breath hitched. His hands shook in his lap.
“You... You must despise me...”
Minoru didn’t say anything. Instead, he just yanked his brother into a tight hug. Isamu choked on a sob. Minoru closed his eyes and just held him for a few moments.
“Isamu. I could never despise you.”
“How?” He managed to gasp. Slowly, Minoru pulled back.
“Well, for starters, if you hadn’t been as pigheaded and perfect as you were back then, we’d probably still be trying to one-up each other. And I can’t imagine that being very fun for either of us!” Minoru smirked. “No, seriously, bro... Thanks to you, I had to figure out for myself how to stand out. I had to try a lot. I had to fail a lot. I had to fall down a lot and make myself get right back up again. And I had to be okay with it, even if no one else was.”
It was a lesson that didn’t just apply to the parkour he developed a passion for, but for life in general. It was the root of his calm, easy-going nature. It was how he learned to empathize. It kept him humble, albeit sometimes self-depreciating. It was the reason why he could follow Isamu across the country, even across dimensions as it were, at the drop of a hat. It was why he could so easily quit one job and just go find another. It was what made Minoru who he was, and he wouldn’t go back in time and change that, not for all the potential in the world.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if you hadn’t been you, I wouldn’t be me. And if I wasted time thinking about missed opportunities, I’d miss the better ones that are about to pop up right in front of me.”
“Like what?” Isamu asked meekly.
“Well, a spot at the top of Mount Midoriyama, for one.” Minoru beamed. “And let’s not forget it was YOU, not me, that put together a submission reel and gave it to me for a birthday present two years ago. I haven’t been training all this time for nothing! I’m going to make it through the city qualifier course this year! And when I make it all the way to Vegas, you’re going to be there on the sidelines cheering me on, right?”
“Oh, of course. Of.. of course!” He stuttered, still a little shocked that his brother would want him in his corner after everything he just confessed. “I’ll even acquire a large fan to wave if you like. I’ll hand out paper fans to the entire crowd!”
Minoru laughed at that. “Heh. Fan. Uchiwa. I like that!”
“I will enthusiastically be the first member of your Fan club.”
“Okay, now you’re just making puns.”
Isamu smiled. “The play on words does lend itself to vast array of amusing situations. You can hardly blame me for desiring to take full advantage of it.”
“Okay, okay. You can have your puns.” He laughed. It was a good one, and truth be told, Minoru kind of liked the idea of looking down from the top of the warped wall to a sea of fans waving in the moonlight. “But there is one more thing I was thinking about. And I don’t really want you to laugh at this one. Okay?”
Once Isamu quietly nodded, Minoru took a deep breath.
“I was thinking... of maybe... going back to school...” he whispered sheepishly. Out of all the things Isamu expected his brother to say, that didn’t even make the list. “Don’t get me wrong, I love working as an orderly. But I’d like to do more than that. I love to move. I love to help people move... I was thinking... if I got my associates, I could become a PTA. You know, a Physical Therapist Assistant. But, well... I don’t know...”
“I think you should do it.” Isamu interrupted.
“Is that you saying that or Astaroth wanting you to say that.”
This time, it was Isamu that pulled his brother into a hug. It was a shorter one, but when he pulled back, he kept his hands firmly on Minoru’s shoulders.
“Astaroth is right, Minoru. You really ARE smarter than you give yourself credit for. You already have a substantial amount of directly-applicable real world experience. And the things you do... Believe me, I could lecture about physics until I am blue in the face, but I could not - and dare not - apply it as you do... you have the potential to motivate and inspire patients in ways that very few others can. I am serious. You should do it.”
Minoru didn’t just smile. He outright grinned.
“Of course, if you need assistance studying, I am here. I promise I will always be here... and from this day forward, I will support you just as much as you have always supported me.”
“Thanks.”
4 - Some things can only happen beneath the light of a blue moon.
Do you see the branches over there? The ones that look like hands? That’s the trees you need to be wary of on a night like this. They’ll become hands sometimes. What? Oh, the trees aren’t evil. No, the evil and wickedness lives in the she-demon who wanders among those kinds of trees. You’ll always know her when she comes around. It’s that damned voice of hers.
Well, it’s enchanted. Not like a princess, more like the witches that trap them in spells. Aye, she uses a wicked magic in that voice. It tricks you into coming to where you are at the greatest peril. You hardly seem to listen to it before you end up caught up with her side of the trees. And there are many trees that belong to her.
A whole forest! She has a ring deep in the middle of the woods. It’s said that’s where she was born all those years ago. Oh yes, she used to be a person, just like you and I, but that is no more. She found the deepest part of the wood many moons ago and it’s said for some reason, she couldn’t leave. Maybe she was tired or thirsty or hungry or hurt, but the way it’s told is that she sat to rest at the roots of a young tree and never got up again.
Oh, don’t look so scared. It was a terrible thing that happened to her, but she was consumed by that tree. It hid her beneath the roots and then drew her up high into its branches. For a while, some said all there was to mark where she fell was the lantern she had carried with her. It was one of those oil burning things, but it went out when she fell. It was the only sign he had ever been there.
Go ahead and laugh, boy, but you have my word that it’s all truth. I keep you two in the house on these nights because I know plenty well what she wants. She didn’t stay down where she lay, nor did she remain with that lantern unlit. On a moon-filled night, the lantern awoken all on its own. Some of the branches from the tree that hid her away and lifted her high moved on their own and let go as she descended from the great height. She appeared in the middle of the branches that had come down on their own and stepped out into the first of her nights.
At first, she was harmless. She was a mere ghost born of the trees who wandered through the neck where she had fallen. She carried her lantern anew and let its light take her through the dark. …What happened to change it? No one can say. She collects the wood now. The lantern might be going out on her and she’s afraid to move on, or maybe she has something she’s still looking for. There’re all kinds of reasons for a soul to not move on.
Oh, don’t look so frightened. You have to lose your way pretty well before she can even find you. People only show up to her when they’ve lost something that can’t be easily gotten back. It’s why I keep telling you two to be honest, even when it gets you in trouble. She’ll find the things you hide away and use them against you so you wander further and further into her neck of the woods. If she finds you, she’ll try and turn you into something only she knows how to use.
Oh, yes. The tiniest seeds like you are the easiest for her to find. She’ll find a way to keep you close and hide you away until there’s nothing left and you can’t remember who you are or where you came from. That’s when we lose the children and they become seeds for her. She’ll bury you in the ground and you’ll rise and rise from it until there’s nothing left but branches and leaves.
What’s the tears for? Come here, girly. That witch woman wouldn’t touch you within an inch of her un-life. You’ve got your gramps and your parents and the whole of the town looking after the both of you. No one’s gonna make you into kindling. If they tried, that witch would have your grandpa to answer to, and you know I’m a big old bear when I’m in the mood for it. See? You’re smiling cause you know gramps is scarier and stronger than any witch.
Don’t look at me like that, it’s your fault for not keeping them informed. How can they stay safe if they don’t know that there’s something in the trees? Now they know what to look for and how to avoid it. Ach, fine. Go and drink your hot chocolate, but I’ll be keeping my ear out for her tonight.
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