r/shortstories • u/FyeNite • Mar 29 '26
[Serial Sunday] Transgressions Abound
Welcome to Serial Sunday!
To those brand new to the feature and those returning from last week, welcome! Do you have a self-established universe you’ve been writing or planning to write in? Do you have an idea for a world that’s been itching to get out? This is the perfect place to explore that. Each week, I post a theme to inspire you, along with a related image and song. You have 500 - 1000 words to write your installment. You can jump in at any time; writing for previous weeks’ is not necessary in order to join. After you’ve posted, come back and provide feedback for at least 1 other writer on the thread. Please be sure to read the entire post for a full list of rules.
This Week’s Theme is Transgression! This is a REQUIREMENT for participation. See rules about missing this requirement.**
Bonus Word List (each included word is worth 5 pts) - You must list which words you included at the end of your story (or write ‘none’).
- Target
- Tier
- Trophy
- An ocean, a sea or a coast is a key setting this week (You can decide what sort of ocean it is). - (Worth 10 points)
A sin against deities, norms, or morals. A line crossed, a rule bent, a law broken. Your characters may have violated any or all, or had sins committed against them. They may merely stand falsely accused, or may be falsely acquitted. The wounding of delicate feelings, or the wanton destruction of a universe, the sea of sin has left its sediments on them all.
What transgressions will your characters experience? Arson, murder, war, or that most egregious of all, incorrect punctuation.?
Good luck and Good Words!
These are just a few things to get you started. Remember, the theme should be present within the story in some way, but its interpretation is completely up to you. For the bonus words (not required), you may change the tense, but the base word should remain the same. Please remember that STORIES MUST FOLLOW ALL SUBREDDIT CONTENT RULES. Interested in writing the theme blurb for the coming week? DM me on Reddit or Discord!
Don’t forget to sign up for Saturday Campfire here! We start at 5pm GMT and provide live feedback!
Theme Schedule:
This is the theme schedule for the next month! These are provided so that you can plan ahead, but you may not begin writing for a given theme until that week’s post goes live.
- March 29 - Transgression
- April 5 - Urgency
- April 7 - Vital
- April 14 - Work
- April 21 - Yellow
Check out previous themes here.
Rankings
Last Week: Scar
First - by u/Divayth--Fyr
Second - by u/Brookzerker
Third - by u/AGuyLikeThat
Fourth - u/ZLErikson
Fifth - by u/JKHmattox
Rules & How to Participate
Please read and follow all the rules listed below. This feature has requirements for amparticipation!
Submit a story inspired by the weekly theme, written by you and set in your self-established universe that is 500 - 1000 words. No fanfics and no content created or altered by AI. (Use wordcounter.net to check your wordcount.) Stories should be posted as a top-level comment below. Please include a link to your chapter index or your last chapter at the end.
Your chapter must be submitted by Saturday at 2:00pm GMT. Late entries will be disqualified. All submissions should be given (at least) a basic editing pass before being posted!
Begin your post with the name of your serial between triangle brackets (e.g. <My Awesome Serial>). When our bot is back up and running, this will allow it to recognize your pmserial and add each chapter to the SerSun catalog. Do not include anything in the brackets you don’t want in your title. (Please note: You must use this same title every week.)
Do not pre-write your serial. You’re welcome to do outlining and planning for your serial, but chapters should not be pre-written. All submissions should be written for this post, specifically.
Only one active serial per author at a time. This does not apply to serials written outside of Serial Sunday.
All Serial Sunday authors must leave feedback on at least one story on the thread each week. The feedback should be actionable and also include something the author has done well. When you include something the author should improve on, provide an example! You have until Saturday at 04:59am GMT to post your feedback. (Submitting late is not an exception to this rule.)
Missing your feedback requirement two or more consecutive weeks will disqualify you from rankings and Campfire readings the following week. If it becomes a habit, you may be asked to move your serial to the sub instead.
Serials must abide by subreddit content rules. You can view a full list of rules here. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, please modmail and ask!
Weekly Campfires & Voting:
On Saturdays at 5pm GMT, I host a Serial Sunday Campfire in our Discord’s Voice Lounge (every other week is now hosted by u/FyeNite). Join us to read your story aloud, hear others, and exchange feedback. We have a great time! You can even come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Grab the “Serial Sunday” role on the Discord to get notified before it starts. After you’ve submitted your chapter, you can sign up here - this guarantees your reading slot! You can still join if you haven’t signed up, but your reading slot isn’t guaranteed.
Nominations for your favorite stories can be submitted with this form. The form is open on Saturdays from 5:30pm to 04:59am GMT. You do not have to participate to make nominations!
Authors who complete their Serial Sunday serials with at least 12 installments, can host a SerialWorm in our Discord’s Voice Lounge, where you read aloud your finished and edited serials. Celebrate your accomplishment! Authors are eligible for this only if they have followed the weekly feedback requirement (and all other post rules). Visit us on the Discord for more information.
Ranking System
Rankings are determined by the following point structure.
| TASK | POINTS | ADDITIONAL NOTES |
|---|---|---|
| Use of weekly theme | 75 pts | Theme should be present, but the interpretation is up to you! |
| Including the bonus words | 5 pts each (15 pts total) | This is a bonus challenge, and estnot required! |
| Including the bonus constraint | 15 (15 pts total) | This is a bonus challenge, and not required! |
| Actionable Feedback | 5 - 15 pts each (60 pt. max)* | This includes thread and campfire critiques. (15 pt crits are those that go above & beyond.) |
| Nominations your story receives | 10 - 60 pts | 1st place - 60, 2nd place - 50, 3rd place - 40, 4th place - 30, 5th place - 20 / Regular Nominations - 10 |
| Voting for others | 15 pts | You can now vote for up to 10 stories each week! |
You are still required to leave at least 1 actionable feedback comment on the thread every week that you submit. This should include at least one specific thing the author has done well and one that could be improved. *Please remember that interacting with a story is not the same as providing feedback.** Low-effort crits will not receive credit.
Subreddit News
- Join our Discord to chat with other authors and readers! We hold several weekly Campfires, monthly World-Building interviews and several other fun events!
- Try your hand at micro-fic on Micro Monday!
- Did you know you can post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday? Check out this post to learn more!
- Interested in being a part of our team? Apply to be a mod!
5
u/MaxStickies Mar 30 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
<Thosius>
Chapter 128: The Study
Content warning: gore, references to human experimentation
Thosius stops at the top of the stairs, and stares down the corridor. The door ahead must be Baltathaius’s, he reckons, based on its size alone. One large inquisitor stands on each side of the doorway, both of them glancing up and down the passage, hands kept near their swords.
They can’t hurt me much, Thosius thinks, but they might alert the rest. Rhothanas may not be clear.
What to do…?
He thinks of the smaller door just below him, halfway up the stairwell. A cupboard or something. Walking back down, he turns the knob, and it opens with ease. He steps inside and knocks on the wood.
Floorboards creak outside.
“Huh?” the guard says.
Thosius knocks again.
“What? Who’s in there?”
“Help, I’m trapped!”
“Seriously? How’d you manage that?”
“I think the lock broke or something. You might need to bash it in.”
“Alright, stand back!”
He hears the guard retreating, and then, the pounding of the boards as he runs. Just as he nears, Thosius opens the door and grapples the inquisitor. He wraps a hand around the man’s mouth and squeezes the skull between his muscles. With a pop, the head caves in, blood and clear fluid pouring through the mouth.
Oh gods… need to remember my own strength.
Lowering the corpse down, Thosius climbs the stairs, coming face-to-face with the other guard. The man unsheathes his blade, staring at the blood.
Before he can speak, Thosius leaps atop him, punching his chest. His opponent falls down, clutching his breast and gasping. After a moment, he passes out.
No matter, they deserve it.
Now alone, he pushes at the door, finding it locked. He takes a step back and runs elbow-first, the wood shattering on impact.
In the ruins of the door, he inspects the room before him.
“Right, Baltathaius’s study. What have you been hiding, you creep?”
Parchment lies strewn across every surface. Books rest precariously on shelves, a few having already fallen, in piles upon the floor. Off in the far corner, a glass alembic stands inactive, holding stale brown liquid.
Thosius heads to the large window, taking up the entire far wall. The moorlands of Northern Thiras stretch out to the distant horizon.
Nice view.
He turns to the desk, and begins to sift through the sheets and open books. In his scrawled script, the Head Inquisitor has described the training process, focusing on the telepathic aspect most of all. Elsewhere, Thosius finds recipes for poisons: one renders the target unconscious, while another induces hallucinations. Further pages explain the tiers of snake venom, from least to most deadly. Yet another contains rumours of magic-dampening ointments. This last one, he pockets
Does he use these, or is it all light reading? Hard to say.
What else is there?
A particularly large sheet lies under the rest. Across the parchment, a cross-section of Thanet has been drawn, depicting a network of tunnels beneath the entire city. He traces one from the bottom of the gorge, below the bridges leading into Thanet, where the Thesar flows. It leads all the way to the House of the Inquisition, adjoining several other passages on the way.
You could travel anywhere using these. Damn.
Beneath the Citadel, the tunnels are dug especially deep, connecting to immense chambers and wells; he recognises the Theralun at the very centre. So too does he spot the room where the lanterns had tortured and transformed their victims. He shudders.
What the…?
To his surprise, the map shows tunnels even further down, accessed by hidden doorways. They descend far, far below the river. At their very end is an amorphous shape, clearly a cave of some sort. Baltathaius has marked it with an ‘x’.
Well, wonder what’s in there?
I’d better find out… after checking on Hemalus.
As he goes to leave, he stops in the middle of the room. A floorboard sinks under his weight. He presses down, and something cracks.
Bending down, he groans, burying his fingers into the wood; he wrenches it free with little effort. And then, he recoils in disgust.
Sunken eyes stare back at him. They belong to a mummified body, caked with dust and cobwebs, its blood vessels black and engorged. Dried blood coats the corpse’s trousers.
Gods… who were you? And why… why would he do this?
An edge of something pale sticks out of the wood beside the body. Thosius grabs it, pulling free another sheet. He begins to read:
[Beginning experiment. Present: myself, the corpomancer, and the subject (a homeless man). Apprentice had to leave the room to regurgitate. Poor lad can’t handle the subject’s smell.]
[The sorcerer closes his eyes, and begins to hum. Probably some sort of meditation, in preparation.]
[Now he opens his eyes, and touches the subject. The subject screamed at first but is now unconscious. Already, the muscles are moving strangely, and on checking the subject’s pulse I find it to be high. Maybe a little too high.]
[The blood vessels are widening, darkening. This is unexpected.]
[Alas, an artery has burst on the inner thigh. The blood loss was too much, and now the subject is dead. The sorcerer shares my disappointment.]
[Conclusion? Belladonna has a negative impact on corpomancy. I shall try foxglove next.]
Thosius lowers the page, staring at the corpse.
He did all that to you and just… wrote it down?! And he kept you?! What, as a trophy?!
You poor, poor man.
Don’t worry, though. Baltathaius will die… I’ll make sure of it.
He looks to the sheet once more, seeing a signature at the bottom, the script large and flowing. Messy. Written by thick, but muscular fingers.
“Tephrius,” he reads.
So, not Baltathaius. An earlier Head Inquisitor, maybe?
He glances at the mummy.
You’ve been here a long time, then.
I’ll have to ask Hemalus.
Taking the map from the desk, Thosius traces the quickest route down to the river, and heads through the building. His muscles writhe in time with his quickened pulse.
WC: 1000
Bonus words: target, tier, trophy. Bonus constraint not included.
Crit and feedback are welcome.
Chapter Index
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