Bits You're Proud Of

[Minibit]

Do you ever have a bit of writing that you're just really proud of? Like a title, a great zinger, or a perfect metaphor?

And like, you want to show it off, but you know people don't want to read the whole work?

Welcome to the thread of show-offs. Go ahead and post JUST THE BIT YOU'RE PROUD OF (some context would be helpful, but may not be necessary) and let us marvel at your genius

Because I am an unashamed self-plugger, I shall start with some gems of my own!

1. I suck at naming things, but I'm pretty proud of this one. I am writing a short story that is, basically, about a fight between two friends with benefits. One person does something that implies seriousnes and committment and couple-ness to the other person, who gets mad and storms away. They arrive at a compromise, and even though they know they want different things, neither one wants to stop things entirely.
   I went through a few titles for it; "The Fight," "Key," "Running in Circles," like I said, I'm terrible at naming things.
   I love what I settled on though:
   Bating.
   And because I knew not everybody who read the story might know what that meant, I inserted the definition above the text the way some works put a quote or dedication.
   Bate: (bāt) v.
   1. To reduce in force or intensity, to restrain.
   2. (of a hawk) to attempt to fly off something in fear.
   - Merriam-Webster Dictionary
   ISN'T IT SO PERFECT OMFG. And I like short, concise titles, too <3
   
2. The opening line of the aforementioned story.
   The first line of a story is its keystone; it doesn't matter if the rest of your story is fantastic, because if your first bit sucks, nobody's going to read the rest. The first bit needs to establish context, conflict, and make the reader curious or amused enough to keep going. You have 2-5 seconds of the reader's time to accomplish this. The first line of Bating is as follows:
   "It was biting cold out, and Edward was wishing he'd put off slamming the door long enough to grab his coat."
   Whaaat? Why'd he slam the door? What got him so mad that not only did he leave his coat when it's so cold, but he's wishing he'd taken it instead of going back for it?
3. Another title: I'm always super proud when I come up with a good title, because again, I'm terrible at naming things so most of the ones I come up with are super basic at worst and super corny at best.
   I haven't actually written this fic yet; it'll probably be a short little drabble. I had the idea while watching The Order of the Phoenix, and I like the title because it implies something really explicitly filthy, but it's actually just a really cute little fluff bit
   Title: Eight Inches
   Synospis: Umbridge decreed that boys and girls should not be allowed within eight inches of each other. She never said anything about other boys.
4. You wouldn't believe the size of my oneNote folder that just has bits of dialogue and stuff that don't belong to any story and I'm just saving for when I find a context for them. Here's some of my favourites:
   
   "I'm sorry, I don't speak Manipulative Fuck"
   -
   The first time he tried to kill me, I fought him.
   -
   "I thought you said it wasn't a date."
   "I wanted it to be."
   -
   He hated not knowing something, it was like an unscratchable itch on the back of his brain.

So what about you guys? Any titles, lines, names, descriptors, or any other kind of writing that you're super proud of? Show it off here!

 

[Moogle-Girl]

Pfff, the Eight Inches one is pretty funny.

A while ago I wanted to nail down exactly how time magic works in my universe, so I put myself in the role of a time mage I already had well established and wrote about how he looks at it. It hit about a page and proved really helpful in getting some details ironed out, but I'm particularly proud of the last two paragraphs and the look they give into the character of the mage himself:

I would never push myself [far enough to stop time completely], but I can't deny that slowing the stream of the outside world to a crawl is incredibly useful. The saying "there is never enough time in the day" doesn't mean anything to me. For me, there is always more than enough time. At first, I was excited by the concept. I used my magic for everyday tasks, from preparing meals for my family at the last minute to constructing small devices in no time and making others smile. But as my life went on, concepts like my age and the true length of an hour began to lose meaning, and I lost control.

Time magic is not something I would push onto anybody, even if I could. I have experienced a little over thirty-five years, but twenty of those years were artificial, conjured from nothing as time rushed over me far faster than normal. When Alex took me in, I was the youngest of the seven, and now I am the oldest by some distance. I still look back on the times I spent entire days holding my timestream at a faster pace simply to quiet down the noise outside while I worked, and I wonder if it was truly worth it. My magic is a wonderful boon, one of the most powerful and useful elements to control, but it is also a terrible curse.

 

[The Mood is Write]

Because I'm a sucker for showing off, here's one of my characters as a guest in his mother's home decides to let the boy read to him.

The boy beamed, then scampered to the shelf and looked along it. A few books looked... questionable. He reached for one with thin wooden pages and two metal loops to hold it all together. "One of our guests from before wrote this one for me. It's about a bunny who can't protect the people he loves, but who tries his best to make sure that the person who hurt them can't hurt anyone else again." He grinned. "It's a fun book!"

"Can you pick something more cheerful, Belly?"

"It's about a bunny, Mama! Bunnies are cheerful!" He huffed as he hugged the book, then looked toward Cobal. He took a seat without warning on the man's lap and opened the book. A picture formed with dark marks burned into the wood depicted a rabbut crying over a pair of graves. Words were written underneath, burned into the wood with care. Beliam put his finger under the first, and moved as he read. "There was a bunny who loved an old woman and her husband. A mean racoon tricked them into falling into a mortar and ground them to death with the pestle. The rabbit said he would get revenge."

He turned the page, to show a raccoon shaking hands with the rabbit. "The rabbit went to he racoon and offered to help him steal crops from the old couple's garden. The raccoon thought the rabbit was being friendly, so said yes."

The next page showed the rabbit striking two stones together as he followed the raccoon. "Chaka chaka went the stones as the rabbit struck them together. The raccoon asked what the sound was, but he said it was the Chaka Chaka bird from the mountain. They walked more, and the raccoon caught on fire. He did not think it was the rabbit's fault, because the rabbit hid the stones."

He turned the page to one that depicted the raccoon howling as he bled, and the rabbit rubbing something onto him. "The rabbit made a salve of mustard, poison ivy, and salt water and rubbed it onto the raccoon's burns. Raccoon screamed in pain, and the rabbit told him that the burning and itching was the salve working."

Another page turned, and it showed a boat. "The rabbit made a boat out of mud for the raccoon and gave it to him, saying if he fished in it, the boat would give him good luck. The raccoon thanked him and said he was a good friend, and then pushed away from shore in his new boat, but once it got to the deep part of the lake, it began to crumble apart in the water."

The next page showed the raccoon standing on the last bit of the mud boat. "'Why did you do this, rabbit?' Raccoon asked. The rabbit said it was revenge for what he did to the old man and the old woman, and the raccoon drowned.

A depiction of the rabbit putting flowers on the pair of graves came next. "The rabbit took flowers to the graves of the old man and the old woman."

"The end!" The boy clapped the book shut.

Ellith sighed heavily from the kitchen, where she was out of sight of the pair by the fireplace.

The story in the book is very heavily yanked from Japanese folklore.

 

[Moogle-Girl]

Jesus, that's brutal. I love it.

 

[The Mood is Write]

Thanks! I stole the story in the book from Japanese folklore, with a few flourishes to make it a little more dramatic (the original featurs the old man asking the rabbit, a stranger, to avenge his wife). 8D