Everyone says that the most important thing about writing is to just get something down on the page.
But sometimes, that’s easier said than done. What if the stuff that comes out of your brain and onto the page is absolute garbage?
Well never fear, friends. Because nothing you write will ever be worse than this auto-generated fanfiction.
During the last stream, we had chat come up with suggestions for characters and more at the Fanfic Maker. The site took in all our inputs and produced a horrifically beautiful piece that wove them all together in one incomprehensible tapestry. We’ve done this a couple of times before.
You can see us read the original here,
or just scroll down for the rewrite.
After we had a good laugh reading through it together, we tried to figure out what the main story was that it was trying to tell. We boiled it down to two characters who used to be lovers, but then became enemies after having a falling out.
With those ideas in mind, we rewrote the story, divvying it up into five pieces. Three viewers, myself, and Abbey rewrote it together.
Here’s what we came up with:
Part 1 by cozyrogers
When she had been a child, Jeanne-Marie had always loved two things — stars and cheese. One night, her father had sat beside her bed and told her a story about the moon and how it was made of cheese. Twenty years later, here she was — a NASA administrator. Turned out the moon wasn’t made of cheese, but she’d seen plenty of stars.
She should be satisfied with one out of two. Lots of people never get a single thing they want, after all. She’d been fortunate. That’s what most people would think… but not Jeanne-Marie. The only thing she could think about was the thing she lacked.
So what does one do when they want twice the reward? She worked twice as hard. For a whole year she’d barely slept… but now she finally had it — the means to turn the moon into the cheese it always should have been. Jeanne-Marie raised her hands above her head, and from the earth all around her sprouted guysers of liquid cheese. A pure white joy consumed her consciousness as the fatigue of her efforts washed over her like a tsunami. the last thing she felt before collapsing backwards onto a soft bed of (typeof cheese) were the corners of her mouth lifting up in a satisfied smile.
But her sleep didn’t last long. A vibration from the phone in her pocket woke her far too soon. Groggily, she extracted the devilish device from her pocket and checked the name on the screen — “Work”. NASA was calling… but this was the weekend, wasn’t it? Surely she hadn’t slept all through Sunday… she warily swiped the ‘answer’ button and spoke.
“Hey. What’s the problem?” Jeanne-Marie asked. From the phone came the voice of a man. “It’s an emergency,” he said urgently, “We need your help.” “It better be.” Marie replied in a strern tone. “It’s…” the man hesitated. Only after audibly swallowing his breath did he continue: “Its… the Brotherhood of Evil.”
Part 2 by joe_g89
A long time ago, Thad managed a small bakery owned by his father. The smell of cookies and muffin tops would waft out the door and caress the nostrils of passersby.
One of them was Brody. He entered the bakery and the bell above the door chimed in Thad’s ears. Thad meant to say “we’re closed,” like usual but when he saw Brody strolling towards him, he dropped his cookies.
“Smells good in here,” said Brody. “Got anything left for sale?”
“We have pizza, it’s fresh.”
“I want something sweeter.”
“How about cookies? Brownies?”
Brody shook his head and glanced around, peering through the glass of baked goods. “What about that?” he said, pointing at a white box on the counter.
“That’s not for sale. I’m actually taking that home with me.”
“Can I just see it?”
Thad’s face melted at his request. His hard front was slowly crumbling. “I guess you can peek.” He grabbed the box, walked it over, and placed it under Brody’s nose. He opened it like it was fine jewelry.
“Is that a…a slice of apple pie?”
Thad nodded and bit his lip.
“I’d sure like to taste it.”
Thad’s mind was a jumble of thoughts, thoughts that betrayed his actions as he desired Brody to devour his pie. A tussle of mind and body. But he wanted this pie to himself. “I…I can’t. I’ve been saving this pie all day.”
“Please?”
Thad groaned.
“But I’m prepared,” said Brody, taking out a shiney fork from his pocket.
They both took bites, back and forth, feeding each other morsels of sweet, crumbly pie, while other customers frowned and marched out. But they didn’t care.
Part 3 by Abbey
Jeanne-Marie knew what she had to do. She had to sincerely defeat Tsungalay with her pure heart and cheese-manipulation powers.
Along the the way to the battlefield, she recounted their many battles together. She glided along a cheesepath to battle Tsungalay.
There, she appeared. She was in an open field, waiting for Jeanne-Marie. The smell of baked apples lingered in the wind.
“Hello old friend,” Tsungalay said. “I’m glad you came.”
Part 4 by TrayChester
I remember the day exactly. Embarrassing, sure. You’d think that after 10 years it wouldn’t still hurt but… he was my everything, for a few beautiful summers… a few bleak winters… We were camping. A few clicks north of Loch Lomond. He would always say he loved roughing it with me, a lot less to carry when you’re with a woman who can make their own food. But this time was different, he hadn’t asked me to make him anything, not even the little cubes he loved. He was just eating the plain bread we brought for sandwiches and those $1 apple pies he would get from the gas station back home.
I snapped at him, I admit it. “Why the hell are you just eating bread!” His reply tore him from me in an instant. “I’m sick of your damned cheese! It’s all we ever eat! Do you have any idea how many little exlax chocolate bars i have in this bag? How many I’ve eaten in the last year alone! No! You wouldn’t… Do you even go to the bathroom?”
The air between us could have decapitated me. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I turned around and started walking back to the rocket Nasa allowed us to borrow.
I did look over my shoulder, just once, to see if he was getting on to, to see if he was still with me. He wasn’t, in any sense. So I left.
Part 5 by Scott
The two former-lovers-turned-enemies, Brody Jeanne-Marie and Thad Tsungalay, gazed into each other’s smoldering eyes from across the battlefield. The smell of cheese fondue sizzled from her palms as neon cheddar dripped from Jeanne-Marie’s hands to the ground.
“You don’t have to do this, Tsungalay!” Jeanne-Marie said. “This isn’t who you are! I remember the real you. Back when… back when….”
“Back when I was weak!” said Tsungalay. She threw out her hands to the side, sending a waft of buttery crust and sugar through the air. “Now, I will truly get what I want.”
She pointed her arm at Jeanne-Marie. Jeanne-Marie knew what that meant. In moments, she would be covered in apple pie-filling, then swiftly smothered in crust. She had to act fast, before her heart held her back any further.
Jeanne-Marie swallowed down her hesitation and pushed out her own palm in front of her, unleashing her greatest weapon: the cottage cheese blaster. From within her sprouted forth a fountain of chunky white and yellow dairy devastation.
But Tsungalay was ready. Apple pie-ndemonium erupted from her hands right at Jeanne-Marie, a raging cinnamon river of warm apple gooiness and crumbling crust.
The two streams collided, churning and writhing as they gushed against each other. But as they grew stronger, they only melded more together. The yellow and whites of the cheese blended with the crispy browns and reds of the pie. Curds flew and diced apples danced in the unconstrained battle for dominance.
Jeanne-Marie was reaching her limit. As she pushed out more and more cheese, the energy dripped away from her body. She only had a few more seconds at full cottage carnage, then she would be little more than a cheddar chump.
And not only that, but the delicious smell was overpowering. Jeanne-Marie’s stomach was nearly empty of fuel, and it was crying out for her to take a bite of the battle between them. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold out for….
Thankfully, she didn’t need to find out. Tsungalay’s pie-spray was slowing down. The chunks of apple and crust that had been flying viscous and fragrant moments ago, now barely popped out. The battleground between them was a mountain of steaming cheese and pie, but there were no more streams feeding it. Tsungalay lowered her hands, breathing heavy, only crumbs now falling from her palms.
“Fine,” Tsungalay said, panting. “You win. You always win!”
Jeanne-Marie pulled back her own hands, stopping the cheesy flow. She shook her head at Tsungalay.
“No, you’re wrong,” she said. She waved toward the pie-le of cheese and apple mush between them. “Look at what we’ve created together.”
“It’s just a mess!” Tsungalay said. “Just like all my plans were a mess! It’s just—”
“Try some,” Jeanne-Marie said. She stepped toward the mound, dug her hand into the warm dripping mass, and brought a gooey handful to her mouth.
“No, Jeanne-Marie!” Tsungalaya pleaded. “Don’t! That’s disgusting!”
Jeanne-Marie bit into the conflict-borne concoction, smearing it all over her smiling face.
“The creamy saltiness of the cottage cheese mixes so well with the sweet stickiness of the apple pie. It’s a cooling blanket over the prickling heat, a basey comrade to the acidic apple, a—”
“A buttery buddy for the pernicious pie,” said Tsungalay, wiping a sugary tear from her eye. “You know, all those terrible things that I did, they were to try and get you back. But I should’ve known that, of course, we work better as a team.”
Jeanne-Marie didn’t say anything. She simply produced a single slice of American cheese, walked over to Tsungalay, and offered it to her as a tissue.
“Don’t worry, my love,” she said. “We have everything we need.”
Tsungalay took the slice of cheese and wiped her cheese-ks. “You mean, each other?”
“Hell naw!” Jeanne-Marie said. She pointed to the blob of food behind them with her thumb. “I mean all that pie and cheese. Goddamn, we’ll never go hungry again. Now come, let’s eat before it gets cold!”
“That’s so cheesy,” Tsungalay said, before diving in together face-first with Jeanne-Marie.
If you saw the original auto-generated fanfic, then you can see that the difference is night and day. What was once a mess is now almost an actual story. Another draft or two and it could be a funny little story.
Sure, it’s not perfect, but we would have never gotten to this point if we didn’t start with the mess, and the same goes for our “serious” writing too. To get to the good stuff, you have to start with garbage, and that’s perfectly fine.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Wikipedia (edited by me)
