Discussion thread -- March 2017 75-word Writing Challenge

[Shyrka]

I went with Little Wonder in the tiebreak due to its amusing turning-on-its-head of the fridging trope.

 

[Mad Alice]

Having been recently served with, "what the blast is taking you so long to get get my (twenty extra blarging boxes of random stuff winnowed down from forty two bags of unwashed and needed washing, unwrapped and needing wrapping surrounded by hopelessly mildewed papers you've declared absolutely essential that need to be individually scanned and reprinted where they are not originals And bleach wiped and ironed where they are, in your spectacular storage system of ripped trash bags stuffed into a mice infested, leaking garret for five or more years, embedded within a protective shell of mummified takeout menus, that you suddenly believe to believe to be my job to exhume and whip into some sort of safe for civilization shape that requires no less then twenty loads of laundering and seven run through silver polish..while darning out the worst of the mouse bitten alterations) kit ready that it's taken a week?" That I went with our local dark lord's offering twice, mainly because ALL the punishments listed by mosiax were already dancing through my mind a bit too much as it was,( accompanying humming "if I had a hammer" in increasingly bloodthirsty thought trains).

And thank-you to Parson and Victoria Silverwood for the reviews, and the listing by Vaz. My story inspiration? My local station had a spate of prewar films on where work assignments were traded off by various bets on games.
I was actually surprised at any mention at all because my story was quickly done between wrapping preciouses, and was meant to save a certain zebra from another months last minute scramble.

 

[Stable]

I did like mosaix's "Humanity F- Yeah" theme (I've been reading some HFY recently and it's fun), but DEO's Little Wonder just had a great conversational flow to it so got my vote (again!).

Many thankses to RJM Corbet, Wruter and Shyrka for votes and to everyone who gave my story a mention! I was inspired by the forum thread about what life would be like in a post-scarcity society. It probably says a lot about me that I lean towards a dystopian rather than utopian vision...

 

[Heijan Xavier]

Both awesome. DEO's punchline was too perfect though and settled the vote. Congrats to both.

 

[Heijan Xavier]

Thanks Wruter and Cats Cradle for the mentions. Either of you, or anyone else get the multi-layered Hawthorne reference?

 

[Parson]

I was inspired (if you could call it that) by the song when the topic "work" came up. I started thinking about how the dwarfs might have really felt about working (of course in mine, where else to dwarfs work?) Later when @Mouse showed up on the Boards again I remembered her great Snow White stories.

 

[Starbeast]

Two tremendous tales to choose from. I wish a could choose both, but I forced myself to pick one.

Good luck Mosaix & David Evil Overlord.

 

[Ursa major]

The tie-breaker poll has now closed and we have a winner:

Congratulations, DavidEvilOverlord!​

​

 

[hopewrites]

*offers live sacrifice on the alter of DEO*
Congratulations!

Well earned win.

___

I'm taking mine to the improving thread.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Congratulations, DEO! And commiserations and a lovely yellow dress to mosaix.

 

[Cathbad]

Congrats, DEO!

 

[Starbeast]

Congratulations David Evil Overlord​

 

[Calliopenjo]

CONGRATULATIONS DAVID EVIL OVERLORD!

 

[Calliopenjo]

Thank you, everyone, for reading my story. I do appreciate it. I also do appreciate being put on people's lists because that means that I caught someone's attention and that they enjoyed my story.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Thanks everyone. This is my first outright win in one of these contests. The closest I've come before was the time I tied with the Judge, and then we tied in the tiebreaker.

I thought history was about to repeat itself.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

The explanation I promised (threatened?). There is a trope called fridging, which comes from a Green Lantern comic. A supervillain murdered Green Lantern's girlfriend and stuffed her body into the fridge so the superhero would find it and swear revenge.

This reduces the lady's life to nothing but a plot device to motivate Our Hero.

It's also wrong because I've known ladies who wouldn't let a little thing like a murderous supervillain spoil their day. They would instead teach him why most accidents happen in the home.

I've always wanted to write a story that turned that trope on its head.

Maybe I should expand it for my superhero novel(s).

 

[Parson]

@David Evil Overlord .... Great win, and a great story.

@mosaix .... also a great story.

 

[Starbeast]

'My Story.......was inspired by my experiences I've had to deal with from many jobs I couldn't stand. I've had bosses that lied, cheated, stole money, attacked women, put employees at risk, etc. You name it, I've probably seen it, or had to deal with it. I almost wanted to skip this month because all I could think about was all the **** I had to deal with through my life. It made me ill and angry. All that came to mind for a story was gory horror, but I didn't want to do that. Killing because of hate is something for the media to blab about, it would only make me feel worse.

I was on break at work, staring off into space, deciding not to write a tale, because it was only going to worsen my mood......when suddenly the song by the Clash came on the radio, "Should I Stay, or Should I Go". I smiled and pretended I was singing that song on stage.......that's when the idea for my story came about. >>>>>>>> Try to reason with the bosses for a better situation, or, revenge, without death, and just get fired.

 

[Talysia]

Congratulations, DEO!

 

[David Evil Overlord]

P.S. A combination of house painting, new carpets, and all the furniture-moving that goes with it, not to mention the frenzied attacks by legions of dust bunnies, meant this story almost didn't get written.