Catch 22 (worm one-shot).

[Zossy]

I was laying down, broken, unable to move. She was sitting, waiting for me to regain consciousness.

"You weren't supposed to be here, but I'm glad you are, what I'm about to do is unjustifiable but well..."

"I'm not from here, you know... I don't mean this city or country, either, I mean this reality."

"In my previous life all of this was a story, irrelevant now... reality is what we experience and this is as real as anything I've lived."

"I don't mean to brag, but I'm ridiculously powerful, if you only count humans then definitely numero uno, I am however not without weaknesses."

"You see, I have knowledge of a possible future, rendered immediately irrelevant by my arrival, but one thing it didn't affect was people and their motivations."

"As powerful as I am, one thing I couldn't defend against was Cauldron, Contessa and her bullshit. No matter how I decided to affect this world, I had to figure out a way to defend against something I couldn't fight."

"The obvious way was to not be noticed, monsters that they are, they are in the name of the greater good, road to hell and all..."

"The issue is that there is no rules, no list of things you shouldn't do and you'll be fine. Their guiding force is esoteric enough that walking on the wrong side of the street would justify shooting you because they operate on the trolley principle. End justifies the means..."

"If there is one thing they are, it's pragmatic. Save a million people and you could kill a million and one just because the time it would take to stop you would prevent Contessa from doing something else that would save more lives."

"It took a while but I came to the obvious conclusion, you can stop them from interfering if doing so would cost more than inaction. Since I'm unable to judge how my actions affect their plans, the only answer is to threaten the worst and my worst is able to end this world."

"Self-determination is all I want, even though this won't achieve it, I thought it would at least guarantee that however I'm manipulated, it would be positive. I don't mind getting corralled towards the things I want, I just don't want to be sacrificed for the sake of others. Selfish of me I know but..."

"I got a clever idea, since they have such an ability to control, why not use it to protect the people I care about? After all, I don't need to actually do anything, all I have to do is decide that if I, or the people I care about are hurt, I will do something drastic. Something they can't ignore. It puts the onus on them to protect and god knows they have the ability."

"Why are we here, then? If it had worked, we wouldn't be after all... The plan failed and nothing I do now will change that. My actions can't rewind time and bring them back, the obvious choice is giving up and disappearing, this is a dead end for me too after all..."

"There's one problem with that, though. See, even if it failed, giving up now would be the reason why. I have to do this to give past me a chance that failed to materialize."

"Ending this world for something unattainable in hindsight, what a cruel fate I set myself up for."

"If it makes you feel better, apparently the alternative would have been worse."

"I'm sorry."

_________________________________________

Definitely looking for criticism, hope you enjoyed.

 

[GAMB42]

A bit short and too self referencial for my tastes but I see what you were going for here. I think you might be giving too much power and agency to Cauldron here since they were never that powerful. They too must contend with economy of action and they were never shown to be so insanely compentent that somebody should simply believe they would act according to their best options, they were never that compentent in canon.

Aside from that the fact it was a monologue without anybody answering was also a issue. Who was the indeeded counterpart for the confession ? Why was he/she dying ? A bit of context could help there in my opinion. As it is the one shot was just a short speech and confession. Very open ended and somewhat empty.

 

[Zossy]

A bit short and too self referencial for my tastes but I see what you were going for here. I think you might be giving too much power and agency to Cauldron here since they were never that powerful. They too must contend with economy of action and they were never shown to be so insanely compentent that somebody should simply believe they would act according to their best options, they were never that compentent in canon.

Aside from that the fact it was a monologue without anybody answering was also a issue. Who was the indeeded counterpart for the confession ? Why was he/she dying ? A bit of context could help there in my opinion. As it is the one shot was just a short speech and confession. Very open ended and somewhat empty.

Click to shrink...

I was trying to keep it ambiguous because since the witness had no agency and no relevance other than prompting the monologue, giving them an identity would at best achieve nothing and at worst, complicate things even more. Having them previously beaten was only to rob them of agency.

I thought about adding details but they ended up being irrelevant to what I was going for while adding layers of complexity I wasn't able to deal with. I figured leaving it ambiguous would allow the reader's imagination to fill the holes in a way my shoddy writing wouldn't be able to.

About Cauldron's competence, most of their failures came from trying to path around things they couldn't path. MC has no such protection. I've certainly read enough fanfics to forget what their actual abilities are though so... This kind of thing is why I left it as open ended as I did, is the loss of the "main world" the better option or a loss born of incompetence, both valid interpretations. I'm certainly not going to pretend it was intended but it's a good example of how being deliberately vague was used as a cover for my lack of writing skill.

Edit: Forgot to add, I really appreciate the feedback, I was a bit disheartened by the lack of criticism in the thread, thanks for taking the time to write it down.

 

[dchimera]

It took me a bit to realize it was a monologue and not a dialogue. I think the rule-of-thumb is that you don't use the closing quotation mark on a paragraph if the following paragraph is still the same person speaking. And the next paragraph would still have use the opening quotation mark. You only use the closing quotation mark when you're finally ready to end the speech section. It's a little weird with a long monologue since there are so many paragraphs that it just looks like you've forgotten the closing quotation mark. But it'd be like this.

I was laying down, broken, unable to move. She was sitting, waiting for me to regain consciousness.

"You weren't supposed to be here, but I'm glad you are, what I'm about to do is unjustifiable but well...

"I'm not from here, you know... I don't mean this city or country, either, I mean this reality.

"In my previous life all of this was a story, irrelevant now... reality is what we experience and this is as real as anything I've lived.

"I don't mean to brag, but I'm ridiculously powerful, if you only count humans then definitely numero uno, I am however not without weaknesses.

"You see, I have knowledge of a possible future, rendered immediately irrelevant by my arrival, but one thing it didn't affect was people and their motivations.

"As powerful as I am, one thing I couldn't defend against was Cauldron, Contessa and her bullshit. No matter how I decided to affect this world, I had to figure out a way to defend against something I couldn't fight.

"The obvious way was to not be noticed, monsters that they are, they are in the name of the greater good, road to hell and all...

"The issue is that there is no rules, no list of things you shouldn't do and you'll be fine. Their guiding force is esoteric enough that walking on the wrong side of the street would justify shooting you because they operate on the trolley principle. End justifies the means...

"If there is one thing they are, it's pragmatic. Save a million people and you could kill a million and one just because the time it would take to stop you would prevent Contessa from doing something else that would save more lives.

"It took a while but I came to the obvious conclusion, you can stop them from interfering if doing so would cost more than inaction. Since I'm unable to judge how my actions affect their plans, the only answer is to threaten the worst and my worst is able to end this world.

"Self-determination is all I want, even though this won't achieve it, I thought it would at least guarantee that however I'm manipulated, it would be positive. I don't mind getting corralled towards the things I want, I just don't want to be sacrificed for the sake of others. Selfish of me I know but...

"I got a clever idea, since they have such an ability to control, why not use it to protect the people I care about? After all, I don't need to actually do anything, all I have to do is decide that if I, or the people I care about are hurt, I will do something drastic. Something they can't ignore. It puts the onus on them to protect and god knows they have the ability.

"Why are we here, then? If it had worked, we wouldn't be after all... The plan failed and nothing I do now will change that. My actions can't rewind time and bring them back, the obvious choice is giving up and disappearing, this is a dead end for me too after all...

"There's one problem with that, though. See, even if it failed, giving up now would be the reason why. I have to do this to give past me a chance that failed to materialize.

"Ending this world for something unattainable in hindsight, what a cruel fate I set myself up for.

"If it makes you feel better, apparently the alternative would have been worse.

"I'm sorry."

Click to shrink...