Daily writing prompt
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?

“That one’s easy. Do onto others what they try to do onto you. I usually skip these because, well, they’re crap like favorite holidays or what kind of sweater you like to wear, but this one was made just for me.”

(Flonk is a monster turncoat, who joined the crew of the Also-Rans out of survival odds. In which he believes his odds of being killed by monsters hasn’t much changed, but now he’s got people who evidently don’t want to kill him, and they’ll fight against monsters who want to kill him. So, slight upgrade!)

“Flonk, isn’t it do onto others as you would have them do onto you?
“That’s a great idea. Lets make a strong suggestion to The Big Bad to stop conquering your people’s lands and sending my kind to die by the thousands to conquer your lands.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose that rule doesn’t work as well.”
Feels like a JRPG in here. I might go with this more often for banter!

“Listen, I know it rates low on the kumbayah scale to think like I do, but the whole creating a just society by choosing civility thing really only works if you’re not part of a decidedly unjust society where stomping on smaller or weaker things is encouraged for extra rations or getting to live till tomorrow. Have you ever met an orc? They name themselves after their weapons, for crying out loud; I’ve never met one named Cuddles, the Snuggly Pillow of Peaceful Slumber. Nah, when you name yourself something like Spleen Harpoon, the Vengeful Lance of Fury, you’re gonna shiv you some spleens, or, if whatever you’re fighting doesn’t actually have a spleen, then just shiv the general area where a spleen might go.”

“So I come by this honestly. Flamoggats are smaller and weaker than orcs. Orcs like crushing and stomping on things that are smaller and weaker than they are. Actually, that’s not just an orc thing, so I generally would want to steer clear of monsters that are bigger than me. Also, humans send low level adventurers to slaughter my kind for green socks or whatnot, so, y’know, there’s that little kind turn the other cheek thing I gotta put up with. Yeah, we were in that farmer’s fields and yeah, we might have stolen that lady’s pie cooling on the windowsill, but in fairness, free pie.”

“Maybe when all this is said and done, and assuming we aren’t the ones said and done for having been killed trying to us a crazy thing like take on the bad guy who has a big army of monsters or whatever, I can work on setting a better example. That sounds nicer, I guess; I’ll put some thought towards it if ever we get there.”


(Fun trivia about orcs, while they do indeed name themselves after their weapons, they aren’t stupid. If they happen upon a weapon better than what they have, they’ll immediately toss their can opener or tuning fork, pick up the new thing, and name themselves that instead. This would be a paperwork nightmare, except orcs can either read or write, not both, so no problem there.)

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