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Join @CRLiterature in reporting on some of our favorite fictional unknowns by writing fun fan fictions based on legendary characters in the public domain. 📽️📺 Ponder media's most ancient figures as we prompt you to provide conclusions or mysteries or new imaginative paths in 250 words or less 🧑💻🤩 Get inspired to write about characters inspired by these legends and win a chance for some awards 🏅🏆
The Maschinenmensch , machine human, is the tool used for chaos in the book Metropolis 1925 , from Thea von Harbou. The Maschinenmensch was created by a scientist called Rotwang at request of Joh Frederson, the master of the city called Metropolis. The original form of the MAschinenemensch is a neutral humanoid form. The master guides the scientist to give the Maschinenmensch the form while opposite intention of a woman named Maria who is a community activist and labor leader in love with the Master's son. The Maschinenmensch turned into a gynoid or a feminine robot, looks like Maria and raises havoc with the laborers and stirs all communities in the city: the cathedral followers put the monk Desertus on the cross, the City of the Dead at the bottom of Metropolis where the poor people work and congregate are guided to destroy all the machines which make the city work endangering their own children, the Club Of the Sons for the aristocracy riling all men and angering all women create total dissention at the top, the night club Yoshiwara dwellers are led by the Maschinenmensch wildly into the streets. Amidst the chaos the Maschinenmensch was ordered to make in the guise of the human female Maria, the android is burned alive.
Your task is to write a tale inspired by The Maschinenenmensch from Metropolis. A legendary android monster. But what if it was made to look like Freder, not Maria? What if it betrayed its programming and acted differently? What if it was made in a quiet little village? What if it wasn't created but an injured traveler from another time? What if the laborers didn't get led by it the form of Maria and sought peace? What if the Maschinenmensch inspired the Maschinenehund, who has its own tale?
From making an alternative world version, to adding unknown elements to the character, you are free to imagine this public domain character, how ever you want. Without using AI or similar machine learning tools, write a short story inspired by The Maschinenmensch now?!
Here’s the rules and rewards for this @CRLiterature activity:
All entries must abide by the DeviantArt Terms of Service, Fair Use rules for submissions, and the group rules for CRLiterature; off topic or inappropriate entries will be removed.
Share your entry as a comment to this journal for reward considerations.
Only submit one (1) comment for this engagement that is your very best work; all entries must be original concepts and human-written, no AI-assisted entries are allowed and will be removed.
Comment with your entry, after September 15th , by the end of the day on September 30th 2026 for rewards consideration for this activity.
You must be a member of @CRLiterature for awards considerations. Joining the group is fast and free from the group homepage.
entry must be 250 words or less
Winners selected at the sole discretion of CRLiterature group admin; all decisions are final and non-negotiable. We will select three (3) winners by October 5th 2026 to receive the following rewards::
Each winner will receive 250 points and a quartz badge
One of the three will receive a hype badge
I can’t wait to see your Invisible Man in Where Are They Now?!
Immediately beyond the Circumshadow of Babel live the oldest villages from the Initial of Peace. The Common Man didn't have enough water for another to reach Babel, not enough food. But, the Common Man reached the base of Babel, in a month, waterless, foodless, tired, focused; a map and a goal is all the man have, and he climb. The ancient ruins labyrinth base still has fires while creaking. Hours later, the Common Man climb pathways made from channels interlocking old shafts, taking rests on loose angled debris. Days later, starving, still, exiting the shafts to the first residential area, the Common Man use the map to find the Public Pantry; finally success, he enter the old pantry, now a garden of mushrooms, and eats or gathers only what he knows to be safe; after a day to settle, he continue the climb through various hallways original or fabricated through chaos to the base of the Great Concourse, a spiral ramp once effective as a grand hybrid roadway or railway that exists through all levels upward; from the Course going upward, he see foreign while greater and greater structures on top of each other, in ever-increasing grandeur even undeniably decayed. After a month The Common Man found the summit, a flat landscape of uneven pebbles allowing him to see the sky anywhere across; he uses the map and measures where his prize may be.
Where is the technology that liberated humans fears, where is the thing made to change worlds?
PRIOR WHERE ARE THEY NOW's - the challenges are over, but the fun isn't. Give each a go and continue their stories with 250 words or less, whenever you want.